![](https://i.imgur.com/CLvY2jA.png")
15-07-2022, 08:24 AM
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and CARLA K. JOHNSON
an hour ago
......
Los Angeles is the most populous county, home to 10 million residents. It faces a return to a broad indoor mask mandate on July 29 if current trends in hospital admissions continue, county health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
Ferrer conceded that “for many this will feel like a step backwards,” but requiring masks again is part of a toolkit of “sensible safety precautions” during a jump in cases that’s reminiscent of the Delta variant-fueled surge last summer.
......
Nationwide, the latest COVID-19 surge is driven by the highly transmissible BA.5 variant, which now accounts for 65% of cases with its cousin BA.4 contributing another 16%. The variants have shown a remarkable ability to get around the protection offered by vaccination.
With the new omicron variants again pushing hospitalizations and deaths higher in recent weeks, states and cities are rethinking their responses and the White House is stepping up efforts to alert the public.
Some experts said the warnings are too little, too late.
......
Global trends for the two mutants have been apparent for weeks, experts said — they quickly out-compete older variants and push cases higher wherever they appear. Yet Americans have tossed off their masks and jumped back into travel and social gatherings.
And they have largely ignored booster shots, which protect against COVID-19′s worst outcomes. Courts have blocked federal mask and vaccine mandates, tying the hands of U.S. officials.
......
federal health officials need to push harder on masks indoors, early detection and prompt antiviral treatment.
“They are not doing all that they can,” Mokdad said.
The administration’s challenge, in the view of the White House, is not their messaging, but people’s willingness to hear it — due to pandemic fatigue and the politicization of the virus response.
......
Barragan said he learned a harsh lesson about the effectiveness of masks when he went without a face covering at a film industry mixer last month in Los Angeles.
“I thought it would be fine because we were all outdoors,” said Barragan, 35. A few days later he started feeling sick and tested positive.
He’d avoided catching the virus for more than two years because he was religious about masking up.
“The one time I took it off, I caught it!” he laughed.
While hospitalizations and deaths have remained well below prior spikes nationally, the current trends are troubling. Last month, daily deaths were falling, though they never matched last year’s low, and deaths are now heading up again.
The seven-day average for daily deaths in the U.S. rose 26% over the past two weeks to 489 on July 12.
......
hundreds of daily deaths for a summertime respiratory illness would ...... be jaw-dropping
......
simple, proven precautions are not being taken. Vaccinations, including booster shots for those eligible, lower the risk of hospitalization and death — even against the latest variants. But less than half of all eligible U.S. adults have gotten a single booster shot, and only about 1 in 4 Americans age 50 and older who are eligible for a second booster have received one.
https://apnews.com/article/covid-science...4fd25a1350
an hour ago
......
Los Angeles is the most populous county, home to 10 million residents. It faces a return to a broad indoor mask mandate on July 29 if current trends in hospital admissions continue, county health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
Ferrer conceded that “for many this will feel like a step backwards,” but requiring masks again is part of a toolkit of “sensible safety precautions” during a jump in cases that’s reminiscent of the Delta variant-fueled surge last summer.
......
Nationwide, the latest COVID-19 surge is driven by the highly transmissible BA.5 variant, which now accounts for 65% of cases with its cousin BA.4 contributing another 16%. The variants have shown a remarkable ability to get around the protection offered by vaccination.
With the new omicron variants again pushing hospitalizations and deaths higher in recent weeks, states and cities are rethinking their responses and the White House is stepping up efforts to alert the public.
Some experts said the warnings are too little, too late.
......
Global trends for the two mutants have been apparent for weeks, experts said — they quickly out-compete older variants and push cases higher wherever they appear. Yet Americans have tossed off their masks and jumped back into travel and social gatherings.
And they have largely ignored booster shots, which protect against COVID-19′s worst outcomes. Courts have blocked federal mask and vaccine mandates, tying the hands of U.S. officials.
......
federal health officials need to push harder on masks indoors, early detection and prompt antiviral treatment.
“They are not doing all that they can,” Mokdad said.
The administration’s challenge, in the view of the White House, is not their messaging, but people’s willingness to hear it — due to pandemic fatigue and the politicization of the virus response.
......
Barragan said he learned a harsh lesson about the effectiveness of masks when he went without a face covering at a film industry mixer last month in Los Angeles.
“I thought it would be fine because we were all outdoors,” said Barragan, 35. A few days later he started feeling sick and tested positive.
He’d avoided catching the virus for more than two years because he was religious about masking up.
“The one time I took it off, I caught it!” he laughed.
While hospitalizations and deaths have remained well below prior spikes nationally, the current trends are troubling. Last month, daily deaths were falling, though they never matched last year’s low, and deaths are now heading up again.
The seven-day average for daily deaths in the U.S. rose 26% over the past two weeks to 489 on July 12.
......
hundreds of daily deaths for a summertime respiratory illness would ...... be jaw-dropping
......
simple, proven precautions are not being taken. Vaccinations, including booster shots for those eligible, lower the risk of hospitalization and death — even against the latest variants. But less than half of all eligible U.S. adults have gotten a single booster shot, and only about 1 in 4 Americans age 50 and older who are eligible for a second booster have received one.
https://apnews.com/article/covid-science...4fd25a1350
