(Trends Wide) — Los Angeles County on Saturday reported its highest number of new Covid-19 cases in a week since the start of the pandemic, marking another milestone as the omicron variant drives a surge in the United States.
The county had more than 200,000 confirmed cases over the previous seven days, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a news release. Hospitalizations doubled over the week to 3,200 and there were 135 Covid-related deaths, the department said.
“Our hearts go out to those families experiencing the pain of losing loved ones to COVID-19,” Barbara Ferrer, director of public health, said in Saturday’s statement. “As the surge continues, we ask residents and businesses to continue to follow public health safety measures that we know slow the spread and keep people safe.”
With the number of infections rising, California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced a proposed $2.7 billion Covid-19 Emergency Response Package designed to bolster testing and vaccination efforts, support frontline workers and combat misinformation, his office said in a news release.
Newsom also signed an executive order on Saturday “establishing consumer protections against price gouging on home testing kits,” according to his office.
“To help improve access to these tests at a fair price, the order generally prohibits sellers from increasing the prices of COVID-19 home test kits by more than 10 percent,” the statement read. press. “The order also provides additional tools for the California Department of Justice and Attorney General’s Office, district attorneys and other local law enforcement to take action against price gougers.”
The rise in infections is also hitting Los Angeles kids hard.
At Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), the positivity rate for children tested for COVID-19 increased from 17.5% in December to 45% year-to-date in January, according to CHLA medical director Dr. Michael Smith.
CHLA currently has 41 inpatients who have tested positive for COVID-19, and about a quarter of the children admitted to the facility with COVID-19 require admission to the pediatric ICU, with some requiring intubation, Smit told Trends Wide on Saturday. .
The increase in cases comes just as Los Angeles students prepare to return to in-person classes on Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in the country, requires all students and employees to show a negative COVID-19 test result before returning to the classroom.
The benchmark test requirement was implemented at the start of the school year in August, and the district announced a week ago that both the benchmark test and required weekly tests for all employees and students would continue through January, given the current increase in the omicron variant.
Shannon Haber, director of communications for LAUSD, told Trends Wide on Saturday that similar protocols in the fall, along with vaccination requirements, universal masking and “Ghostbuster-level” sanitation practices, have made it possible for each of its More than 1,000 schools will stay open for face-to-face learning this academic year.
Haber said 100% of LAUSD employees are fully vaccinated and students 12 and older must be fully vaccinated by the start of the next school year, with 90% so far meeting that requirement.
Disputes over face-to-face learning
Nationwide, 39 states are reporting a 50% or greater increase in cases over the past week compared to the previous week, and as of Saturday, the seven-day average of daily new cases in the United States was 701,199, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
For the week ending Dec. 30, children accounted for 17.7% of new cases reported in the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics said, noting a record 325,00 new cases among children, an increase 64% compared to the previous week.
In response to the rise in pediatric infections, disputes over whether in-person learning is ideal during the omicron surge and how students can safely attend school are playing out in several school districts this week.
The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system has canceled classes since Wednesday due to a dispute between city officials and the teachers’ union over returning to the classroom.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) had voted to teach remotely due to the rise of Covid-19, but the school district canceled classes, saying it wanted in-person learning.
The CTU on Saturday presented a new proposal to Mayor Lori Lightfoot that the union said would provide clarity on returning to the classroom, create stronger security and testing protocols and restart the educational process for students.
CPS rejected the proposal, saying it hoped to “continue negotiations to reach an agreement.”
The school district agreed to the CTU’s request to provide KN95 masks for all staff and students for the remainder of the school year and said they will continue to provide weekly covid-19 testing to all students and staff.
In Georgia, public school teachers who test positive for COVID-19 no longer have to isolate before returning to school, and contact tracing in schools is no longer necessary, according to a letter to school leaders. released Thursday by Governor Brian Kemp and Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey.
The Georgia Department of Public Health released an updated administrative order Wednesday that allows teachers and school staff, regardless of vaccination status, to return to work after an exposure to COVID-19 or a positive COVID-19 test if they remain asymptomatic and wear a mask while at work.
Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, told Trends Wide on Saturday that she believed the changes were “the absolutely wrong thing to do at the worst possible time.”
“We know that there is an increase in cases in our children, that there is an increase in hospitalizations for our children and this action shows a lack of regard for the health and safety of educators, students and our families,” Morgan said.
He said educators wanted to be in classrooms with their students, but that must be achieved by keeping people healthy.
The removal of the contact tracing requirement was frustrating, he said. “Now, an educator will not know if there is a positive case in their classroom. Parents will not know if there is a positive case in their child’s classroom. Therefore, educators and parents will not be able to make informed decisions.” to ensure health and safety,” Morgan said.
The teacher shortage in Boston prompted Superintendent Brenda Cassellius to step in to teach a fourth-grade class last week. She told Trends Wide on Saturday that the stress of the last two years had been difficult for adults and children.
“Particularly, it has been challenging for our high school students and our high school students who have had significant isolation and lack of regulation due to mental health issues,” he said. Going forward, Cassellius said, more testing capacity is needed in his district.
“We need our teachers to be included in those tests because right now vaccinated students and teachers are not included in those tests. We need some policy changes, particularly when we’re in times of surge,” he said.
Hospitals struggling with numbers
Staffing shortages are mounting as frontline health care workers, who are at higher risk of exposure, are infected and must quarantine at a time when the spread of the omicron variant is driving more people into hospitals. hospitals.
More than 138,000 covid-19 patients were in hospitals in the United States as of this Saturday, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, for its acronym in English). That’s not far off the all-time high (around 142,200 in mid-January 2021) and up from around 45,000 in early November.
About 1 in 4 hospitals in the United States — (24%) — are reporting a “critical staffing shortage,” the largest share of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to HHS data on Saturday.
Of the roughly 5,000 hospitals that reported this data to HHS, nearly 1,200 said they are currently experiencing critical staffing shortages, and more than 100 more hospitals said they anticipate a shortage over the next week.
To safeguard hospital capacity, some states have reduced elective surgeries at certain facilities.
In New York, 40 hospitals, primarily in the Mohawk Valley, Finger Lakes and central regions, have been told to halt non-essential elective operations for at least two weeks due to low patient bed capacity, the New York State Department said Saturday. state health department.
In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly signed a state of emergency disaster this week due to the challenges of covid-19.
The medical director of the University of Kansas Health System, Steven Stites, told Trends Wide on Saturday that they were very close to implementing crisis standards of care.
“At some point it says we’re too overwhelmed to do our normal daily work. We can’t even meet all the demands of our patients, and at that point we have to flip a switch that says we have to sort out the people we can help.” more and that means we have to let some people die that we could have helped but weren’t sure about: they were too far away or they had too many injuries, or maybe we can’t get to that trauma that just came.”
That change, Stites said, could be changed if they have too many Covid patients or if they lose too many staff to Covid-19.
Stites said two waves were hitting Kansas simultaneously, with delta speeding up after Thanksgiving, to be met by omicron.
“Right now, most of our hospitalizations reflect delta – lots of patients – at the same time our staff is getting hit by omicron. … It’s almost a double pandemic for us. And that’s really the challenge. healthy people, so we can keep our patients healthy,” he said.
Stites said the vast majority of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.
“Eighty to 90% of the patients who come into our hospital are not vaccinated. Ninety-five percent of our patients who are in the intensive care unit are not vaccinated. And 99% of the people who are in ventilator or dying are not vaccinated… you can say what you want, people can make up whatever news they want, the reality is, what is the reality. The unvaccinated patients, the unvaccinated people, are the people who are at higher risk.”
About 62.5% of the total US population is fully vaccinated according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 36% of them have received a booster shot, the data shows.
Trends Wide’s Travis Caldwell, Keith Allen, Raja Razek, Natasha Chen and Anna-Maja Rappard contributed to this report.
(Trends Wide) — Los Angeles County on Saturday reported its highest number of new Covid-19 cases in a week since the start of the pandemic, marking another milestone as the omicron variant drives a surge in the United States.
The county had more than 200,000 confirmed cases over the previous seven days, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a news release. Hospitalizations doubled over the week to 3,200 and there were 135 Covid-related deaths, the department said.
“Our hearts go out to those families experiencing the pain of losing loved ones to COVID-19,” Barbara Ferrer, director of public health, said in Saturday’s statement. “As the surge continues, we ask residents and businesses to continue to follow public health safety measures that we know slow the spread and keep people safe.”
With the number of infections rising, California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced a proposed $2.7 billion Covid-19 Emergency Response Package designed to bolster testing and vaccination efforts, support frontline workers and combat misinformation, his office said in a news release.
Newsom also signed an executive order on Saturday “establishing consumer protections against price gouging on home testing kits,” according to his office.
“To help improve access to these tests at a fair price, the order generally prohibits sellers from increasing the prices of COVID-19 home test kits by more than 10 percent,” the statement read. press. “The order also provides additional tools for the California Department of Justice and Attorney General’s Office, district attorneys and other local law enforcement to take action against price gougers.”
The rise in infections is also hitting Los Angeles kids hard.
At Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), the positivity rate for children tested for COVID-19 increased from 17.5% in December to 45% year-to-date in January, according to CHLA medical director Dr. Michael Smith.
CHLA currently has 41 inpatients who have tested positive for COVID-19, and about a quarter of the children admitted to the facility with COVID-19 require admission to the pediatric ICU, with some requiring intubation, Smit told Trends Wide on Saturday. .
The increase in cases comes just as Los Angeles students prepare to return to in-person classes on Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in the country, requires all students and employees to show a negative COVID-19 test result before returning to the classroom.
The benchmark test requirement was implemented at the start of the school year in August, and the district announced a week ago that both the benchmark test and required weekly tests for all employees and students would continue through January, given the current increase in the omicron variant.
Shannon Haber, director of communications for LAUSD, told Trends Wide on Saturday that similar protocols in the fall, along with vaccination requirements, universal masking and “Ghostbuster-level” sanitation practices, have made it possible for each of its More than 1,000 schools will stay open for face-to-face learning this academic year.
Haber said 100% of LAUSD employees are fully vaccinated and students 12 and older must be fully vaccinated by the start of the next school year, with 90% so far meeting that requirement.
Disputes over face-to-face learning
Nationwide, 39 states are reporting a 50% or greater increase in cases over the past week compared to the previous week, and as of Saturday, the seven-day average of daily new cases in the United States was 701,199, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
For the week ending Dec. 30, children accounted for 17.7% of new cases reported in the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics said, noting a record 325,00 new cases among children, an increase 64% compared to the previous week.
In response to the rise in pediatric infections, disputes over whether in-person learning is ideal during the omicron surge and how students can safely attend school are playing out in several school districts this week.
The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system has canceled classes since Wednesday due to a dispute between city officials and the teachers’ union over returning to the classroom.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) had voted to teach remotely due to the rise of Covid-19, but the school district canceled classes, saying it wanted in-person learning.
The CTU on Saturday presented a new proposal to Mayor Lori Lightfoot that the union said would provide clarity on returning to the classroom, create stronger security and testing protocols and restart the educational process for students.
CPS rejected the proposal, saying it hoped to “continue negotiations to reach an agreement.”
The school district agreed to the CTU’s request to provide KN95 masks for all staff and students for the remainder of the school year and said they will continue to provide weekly covid-19 testing to all students and staff.
In Georgia, public school teachers who test positive for COVID-19 no longer have to isolate before returning to school, and contact tracing in schools is no longer necessary, according to a letter to school leaders. released Thursday by Governor Brian Kemp and Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey.
The Georgia Department of Public Health released an updated administrative order Wednesday that allows teachers and school staff, regardless of vaccination status, to return to work after an exposure to COVID-19 or a positive COVID-19 test if they remain asymptomatic and wear a mask while at work.
Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, told Trends Wide on Saturday that she believed the changes were “the absolutely wrong thing to do at the worst possible time.”
“We know that there is an increase in cases in our children, that there is an increase in hospitalizations for our children and this action shows a lack of regard for the health and safety of educators, students and our families,” Morgan said.
He said educators wanted to be in classrooms with their students, but that must be achieved by keeping people healthy.
The removal of the contact tracing requirement was frustrating, he said. “Now, an educator will not know if there is a positive case in their classroom. Parents will not know if there is a positive case in their child’s classroom. Therefore, educators and parents will not be able to make informed decisions.” to ensure health and safety,” Morgan said.
The teacher shortage in Boston prompted Superintendent Brenda Cassellius to step in to teach a fourth-grade class last week. She told Trends Wide on Saturday that the stress of the last two years had been difficult for adults and children.
“Particularly, it has been challenging for our high school students and our high school students who have had significant isolation and lack of regulation due to mental health issues,” he said. Going forward, Cassellius said, more testing capacity is needed in his district.
“We need our teachers to be included in those tests because right now vaccinated students and teachers are not included in those tests. We need some policy changes, particularly when we’re in times of surge,” he said.
Hospitals struggling with numbers
Staffing shortages are mounting as frontline health care workers, who are at higher risk of exposure, are infected and must quarantine at a time when the spread of the omicron variant is driving more people into hospitals. hospitals.
More than 138,000 covid-19 patients were in hospitals in the United States as of this Saturday, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, for its acronym in English). That’s not far off the all-time high (around 142,200 in mid-January 2021) and up from around 45,000 in early November.
About 1 in 4 hospitals in the United States — (24%) — are reporting a “critical staffing shortage,” the largest share of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to HHS data on Saturday.
Of the roughly 5,000 hospitals that reported this data to HHS, nearly 1,200 said they are currently experiencing critical staffing shortages, and more than 100 more hospitals said they anticipate a shortage over the next week.
To safeguard hospital capacity, some states have reduced elective surgeries at certain facilities.
In New York, 40 hospitals, primarily in the Mohawk Valley, Finger Lakes and central regions, have been told to halt non-essential elective operations for at least two weeks due to low patient bed capacity, the New York State Department said Saturday. state health department.
In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly signed a state of emergency disaster this week due to the challenges of covid-19.
The medical director of the University of Kansas Health System, Steven Stites, told Trends Wide on Saturday that they were very close to implementing crisis standards of care.
“At some point it says we’re too overwhelmed to do our normal daily work. We can’t even meet all the demands of our patients, and at that point we have to flip a switch that says we have to sort out the people we can help.” more and that means we have to let some people die that we could have helped but weren’t sure about: they were too far away or they had too many injuries, or maybe we can’t get to that trauma that just came.”
That change, Stites said, could be changed if they have too many Covid patients or if they lose too many staff to Covid-19.
Stites said two waves were hitting Kansas simultaneously, with delta speeding up after Thanksgiving, to be met by omicron.
“Right now, most of our hospitalizations reflect delta – lots of patients – at the same time our staff is getting hit by omicron. … It’s almost a double pandemic for us. And that’s really the challenge. healthy people, so we can keep our patients healthy,” he said.
Stites said the vast majority of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.
“Eighty to 90% of the patients who come into our hospital are not vaccinated. Ninety-five percent of our patients who are in the intensive care unit are not vaccinated. And 99% of the people who are in ventilator or dying are not vaccinated… you can say what you want, people can make up whatever news they want, the reality is, what is the reality. The unvaccinated patients, the unvaccinated people, are the people who are at higher risk.”
About 62.5% of the total US population is fully vaccinated according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 36% of them have received a booster shot, the data shows.
Trends Wide’s Travis Caldwell, Keith Allen, Raja Razek, Natasha Chen and Anna-Maja Rappard contributed to this report.
