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California sees COVID cases surge, nears highest summer levels in two years

If it looks like many individuals round you might be getting COVID-19, you’re not alone.
Federal knowledge present coronavirus ranges in California’s wastewater are surging to ranges not seen in summertime since 2022, indicating a large and worsening unfold of COVID.
“We’re seeing … a particular, particular surge,” stated Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious illness at Kaiser Permanente Southern California.
The surge is clearly obvious in physician’s places of work and clinics the place individuals are looking for outpatient therapy, Hudson stated. However, fortunately, not many individuals are having to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 at this level.
“The wastewater numbers are nonetheless headed up. So we’re undoubtedly seeing an increasing number of instances,” Hudson stated.
She urged folks to check for COVID-19 if they’ve respiratory signs.
“In case you have cough-and-cold signs, at this level, residing in Los Angeles, it is best to actually assume that they’re COVID till confirmed in any other case,” she stated.
This newest surge is being fueled largely by the FLiRT variants — a group of extremely transmissible sibling strains which have out-muscled last winter’s dominant strain, JN.1.
Specifically, one of many FLiRT strains, referred to as KP.3.1.1, has really taken off, Hudson stated. The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention estimates that that pressure accounted for 17.7% of coronavirus samples nationwide for the two-week interval that ended July 20, up from 6.8% for the prior comparable interval.
At that price of progress, that pressure is more likely to grow to be more and more dominant within the subsequent few weeks, Hudson stated. “So, sadly, I believe we’re going to see much more instances.”
Coronavirus ranges in California sewage are thought-about “very excessive” for a 3rd consecutive week, the CDC stated Friday. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia — house to just about 3 in 4 People — have both “excessive” or “very excessive” coronavirus ranges in wastewater.
For the seven-day interval that ended July 20, the newest knowledge obtainable, coronavirus ranges in California wastewater had been at 93% of the height from the summer time of 2022. They’ve already exceeded final summer time’s top.
And there are indications that this summer time’s COVID-19 wave might need some endurance. Coronavirus ranges in California wastewater have been “excessive” or “very excessive” for seven straight weeks, with no signal of cresting. The wave from the summer time of 2022 performed out over 16 weeks throughout which viral ranges had been “excessive” or “very excessive,” and final summer time‘s wave lasted eight weeks.
The proliferation of the FLiRT variants could lengthen this summer time’s surge, consultants say, since they present a selected knack for immune evasion.
“It does seem to be we’re spitting out an increasing number of variants much more shortly, and that’s most likely to be anticipated,” Hudson stated. “This virus continues to be very, very new to people, and the virus desires to stay, and the best way that it lives is by evading immunity” — circumventing folks’s defenses by evolving in a approach to maintain the chain of an infection going.
Additionally, “issues are just about again to regular,” Hudson stated, with many individuals abandoning their once-cautious pandemic behaviors.
Even on the Olympics in Paris, COVID-19 is now handled like another respiratory sickness. The protocol amongst contaminated athletes is — in the event that they’re feeling effectively sufficient to coach — to have them put on masks, isolate once they’re not coaching and keep away from sure communal areas such because the fitness center.
Areas throughout California are reporting excessive coronavirus ranges in sewage. Within the San Francisco Bay Space, San José and Palo Alto have usually had high coronavirus levels because the finish of Might. Fresno County well being officers stated final week that coronavirus ranges had been excessive throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
The speed at which California’s COVID-19 assessments are turning up constructive has now exceeded final summer time’s peak. For the seven-day interval that ended July 22, 13.8% of coronavirus assessments got here again constructive. That exceeds final summer time’s most of 13.1%.
Anecdotally, there are a lot of studies of individuals getting COVID-19 from occasions together with weddings, work conferences and flights, inflicting signs robust sufficient to make them depressing for days. Some have been shocked by nastier signs this time round in contrast with earlier bouts of COVID-19, though there are not any indications that the most recent subvariants lead to extra extreme sickness general.
Those that are older or immunocompromised stay at highest danger.
A whole lot of COVID-19 deaths are nonetheless reported nationally each week. Amongst those that have just lately died of issues from COVID-19 and pneumonia was the journalist Dan Collins, 80, who co-wrote “Grand Phantasm: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11.”
His spouse, New York Instances columnist Gail Collins, wrote that she and her husband each acquired COVID-19. “It felt like a nasty chilly on my finish, however Dan wakened one night time unable to breathe in any respect. We went to the closest hospital’s intensive care unit, and he by no means recovered,” she wrote.
General, deaths and hospitalizations from COVID look like decrease than these final summer time.
In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, there have been a mean of 286 COVID-19-positive folks in hospitals for the week that ended July 20. That’s flat from the prior week’s determine of 291, and about half as many as final summer time’s peak and one-quarter as many as the height of summer time 2022.
At UC San Francisco, COVID-19 hospitalizations appear to have stabilized, however “there’s plenty of COVID exterior the hospital. Virtually all people has it: There’s been outbreaks at, you realize, music gatherings and other people’s dinners,” stated Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious illnesses knowledgeable there.
There could also be a number of causes behind the preliminary indicators of hospitalizations stabilizing, Chin-Hong stated. Normally, inhabitants immunity towards COVID-19 is larger. Additionally, it’s doable that the introduction of COVID-19 antiviral pills resembling Paxlovid and its widespread availability could also be preserving at-risk folks from the hospital.
However with COVID-19 infections growing or likely growing in 35 states, in addition to the nation’s capital, Chin-Hong instructed that higher-risk individuals who aren’t up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccine ought to get it now, and never wait till the up to date autumn model turns into obtainable.
Everybody age 6 months and above ought to have acquired an up to date COVID-19 vaccination beginning in September, based on CDC pointers. These 65 and older ought to have acquired a second vaccination dose 4 months after their first up to date dose. Many seniors, nevertheless, haven’t had even a single up to date dose.
Immunocompromised people ought to have acquired one or two doses of the up to date vaccine since September, and should get extra vaccine doses two months after their final beneficial dose.
“It’s not displaying any indicators that it’s happening,” Chin-Hong stated of the COVID-19 wave. “It’s a good suggestion for many who are older or immune-compromised to nonetheless get it proper now. As a result of by now, I’d have thought that COVID could be plateauing and happening, but it surely doesn’t appear that means — most likely, as a result of the remainder of the nation has caught up” with states resembling California.
In just one state, Hawaii, did the CDC estimate that COVID-19 is more likely to be declining.
By quite a lot of metrics, COVID-19 indicators are persevering with to rise in L.A. County. For the week that ended July 21, L.A. County reported a mean of 413 instances a day, up from 359 the prior week. Formally reported instances are thought-about an undercount, as they don’t account for at-home assessments or the truth that fewer individuals are testing on the whole, however the figures are nonetheless useful in understanding transmission developments.
Coronavirus ranges in L.A. County wastewater had been at 40% of final winter’s peak over the 10-day interval that ended July 13. That’s up from 36% for the 10-day interval that ended July 6.
For the weekly interval that ended July 21, 3.4% of emergency-room visits in L.A. County had been associated to the coronavirus. That’s up from 2.8% for the prior week.
Hudson inspired folks to check repeatedly if they’ve signs of COVID-19, even so far as the fifth day after the onset of sickness. Individuals who really feel sick would possibly check adverse over the primary or second days
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GOP widens UC antisemitism investigations, hitting UCLA, UC San Francisco medical schools

The UCLA and UC San Francisco medical schools have been given two weeks to submit years of internal documents to a Republican-led congressional committee about alleged antisemitism and how the schools responded, widening the federal government’s far-reaching investigations into the University of California.
The demands from House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) cited reports of Jewish people “experiencing hostility and fear” at each campus and that universities had not proved that they “meaningfully responded.”
Walberg’s letters said the committee would be investigating whether the schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
The additional investigation comes as top UC officials and the Justice Department have begun negotiations over allegations that the UCLA campus overall has been hostile to Jewish students, staff and faculty. The federal government has suspended more than $500 million in health, medical and energy research grants from UCLA and is seeking $1 billion and major campus changes before restoring the funds.
The Trump administration cited alleged Title VI violations when pulling the money.
The House committee said Monday it wanted “all documents and communications” since Sept. 1, 2021, tied to complaints of antisemitic incidents at UCLA and UC San Fransisco. A similar letter was also sent to the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Some UCLA medical school faculty are members of a broader campus organization, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group, that has aired complaints publicly for months at UC regents meetings about antisemitism.
The group’s chair, medical school assistant clinical professor of psychiatry Kira Stein, is mentioned in the Monday letter to UCLA as a faculty member who has reported anti-Jewish incidents.
“Federal lawmakers, in their letter released today, echoed what many of us have experienced firsthand: Antisemitism at UCLA is common, corrosive, and continues to be met with silence and inaction from the university administration and local leaders,” Stein said in a statement Monday.
The committee has asked for communications with UCLA’s medical school dean, administrators who work on diversity or restorative justice-related programs, and several other positions as well as data on specific events and courses, including one on “structural racism and health equity.”
It also asked for emails from administrators “referring or relating to antisemitism or the terms Jewish, Israel, Israeli, Palestine, or Palestinian.” And it requests information about a January report focused on the medical school that a UCLA task force on anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism prepared.
That 35-page report said “students, residents and faculty in the David Geffen School of Medicine who express support for Palestinian human rights, and who offer any criticism of Israel’s violation of them, face harassment from within and outside the medical school.”
The House committee has asked for “all documents and communications since October 7, 2023 in the possession of the office of the executive vice chancellor” — UCLA Provost Darnell Hunt — related to that task force. Members of the task force have accused UCLA of not taking complaints of bias incidents against Muslims, Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans as seriously as it has reports of antisemitism.
Walberg said that, in addition to Title VI enforcement, he would use the documents to “aid the committee in considering whether potential legislative changes, including legislation to specifically address antisemitic discrimination, are needed.”
The UCLA medical school is also under a Department of Health and Human Services investigation over accusations that it “discriminates on the basis of race, color, or national origin in its admissions.” UCLA denied the charges and the department has not formally announced the results of its investigation that began in late March. But when it canceled hundreds of millions in grants to UCLA last month, the Trump administration said the action was due in part to its belief that the university illegally uses race in admissions.
In a Monday statement, a spokesperson for the UCLA medical school said it opposed antisemitism.
“Antisemitism has no place at UCLA’s medical school. Protecting the civil rights of our Jewish community members remains a top priority,” the statement said. “We are committed to fair processes in all our educational programs and activities, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws and continue to take specific steps to foster an environment free of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment.”
A spokesperson for UC San Francisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tense disagreements have erupted at the UCLA medical school between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, faculty and staff since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza. Each has accused the other of discrimination, doxxing and harassment. Incidents at the school have been cited by two UCLA task forces, one that looked at antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias and the other that researched anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism.
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Abrego Garcia Detained Again After Administration Signaled It Would Re-Deport Him
A judge in Maryland barred the administration from immediately deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia until he had a chance to challenge the move.
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Fed Chair Jerome Powell is worried about the job market. Here are 3 red flags for workers.

When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door to cutting interest rates for the first time in nearly a year, he noted the tremors beginning to shake a main pillar of the U.S. economy: the labor market.
Concerns about the pace of job growth were heightened earlier this month after government data showed a sharp slowdown in hiring in July, along with much weaker payroll gains in May and June than previously thought. The disappointing numbers were alarming enough for President Trump to question their accuracy and to fire the head of the agency tasked with compiling the data.
Yet labor experts tell CBS News they weren’t surprised by the downturn, and caution that more pain could be in store for job seekers. Data released since the August 1 job numbers shows companies are delaying hiring as they adjust course to account for headwinds including fresh U.S. tariffs and the advent of artificial intelligence, they say.
“There’s a real cooling in the labor market,” Andy Challenger, senior vice president of executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told CBS MoneyWatch. “We’re also having lots of individual conversations with companies that are letting us know to expect future layoffs.”
He added, “So for me, there is more reason to be pessimistic about the labor market than optimistic we’ll see some major bounce back.”
Here are three charts that could point to a serious downturn in the U.S. job market.
Fewer workers are getting hired
Overall, U.S. employers in 2025 have added fewer jobs on a monthly basis compared with the pace of gains in recent years, when companies sought to expand as the economy roared back from the pandemic. In 2024, employers hired an average of 168,000 workers each month, but that has slowed to an average of 35,000 over the past three months, Powell said on Friday.
The risk is that the labor market could weaken from here, which could lead to “sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment,” Powell said.
The slowdown could spur the Fed to cut its benchmark interest rate, policymakers’ main tool for energizing the economy and job growth, at its meeting next month for the first time since December 2024. Lowering rates could bolster the labor market because it would make it cheaper for consumers to borrow, driving spending, for businesses to invest, including by adding workers.
More long-term job seekers
Another troubling sign is a recent surge in long-term job seekers, or people who have been searching for a job for more than 27 weeks. In July, about 1.8 million Americans had been looking for work for more than 27 weeks, a jump of about 64% from three years earlier and 20% from a year ago.
It may not get easier to find work anytime soon, given signs from employers that they intend to continue to cut jobs, Challenger said.
“Don’t take the summer off” from looking for new work, he advised job-hunters. “It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the labor market will be better in three to six months.”
A jump in unemployed young workers
At the same time, young workers are also having more trouble finding their first jobs, which has been blamed on everything from slowing economic activity this year to employers adopting artificial intelligence in place of entry-level workers.
To be sure, the nation’s unemployment rate remains low, at 4.2%. Yet that statistic is backward-looking, reflecting the labor market’s strength in previous months — it says little about economic conditions moving forward.
Meanwhile, for new college graduates the current job market amounts to “a perfect storm,” said career coach Tracey Newell.
“Companies are limiting new entry-level roles, and AI is replacing many traditional ‘starter’ jobs,” she added, noting that it isn’t unusual for employers these days to receive hundreds of job applications for a single position.
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