California coronavirus updates: COVID-19 pandemic has shifted people's finances

12:10 p.m.: COVID-19 pandemic has shifted people's finances

In the last half of 2022, we heard a lot of talk about the "Great Resignation," aka, the Big Quit.

This was a trend that started right around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw large numbers of people voluntarily leaving their jobs.

According to an episode of NPR's Planet Money, new data shows that people weren't so much as quitting forever, but were rather shuffling their careers around.

In many cases, people were leaving jobs that paid well but required long hours and instead switched, perhaps, to jobs that paid less but gave them more control over their lives.

But that's not the only change the pandemic made to people's spending and financial habits. Certified financial planner and CBS News business analyst Jill Schlesinger told NPR that estate planning has become front-and-center for a lot of clients.

"I no longer have to fight with people about getting estate planning," Schlesinger said. "It's been a fascinating shift."

12:19 p.m.: FDA plans to simplify COVID-19 vaccinations

The U.S. is poised to make COVID-19 vaccinations more like a yearly flu shot.

According to the Associated Press, the Food and Drug Administration’s scientific advisers are helping to decide if most Americans may need once-a-year boosters — and how and when to periodically update the shot’s recipe.

COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives and booster doses continue to help, but protection can wane and the virus is still rapidly mutating.

It seems that Americans are getting tired of getting vaccinated. While more than 80% of the U.S. population has had at least one COVID-19 shot, only 16% of those eligible for the latest bivalent boosters have gotten one.

FDA’s advisers say vaccination should be made simpler to combat this. Next steps will include a spring meeting on whether to update the vaccine recipe against new virus strains, and when to encourage people to get them.

The next plan by the FDA is to call its advisory panel for another meeting in late May or early June to decide if the vaccine recipe needs tweaking — including which virus strain to target and whether it should be a single-strain or multi-strain shot.

11:49 a.m.: Judge blocks California law preventing doctors from spreading COVID-19 misinformation

A federal judge has blocked a California law intended to keep doctors from spreading false information about COVID-19.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb prevented the law, AB2089, from staying in effect while he considers a pair of lawsuits against it. Shubb ruled the law is too vague and that “COVID-19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus.”

One of the lawsuits was filed by a group of doctors. The other is by the Children’s Health Defense, a group led by childhood vaccine opponent Robert Kennedy Jr.

The law allows the California Medical and Osteopathic Medical Boards to discipline doctors for spreading “misinformation and disinformation” about COVID-19 and its vaccines. It took effect Jan. 1, 2023.

Its author, Democratic Assembly member Evan Low, has said it was intended only to go after doctors who spread blatant lies about the safety or effectiveness of vaccines.

12:29 p.m.: Pyongyang under lockdown for respiratory disease

North Korea’s capital is under a five-day lockdown to fight the spread of an unspecified respiratory disease.

According to NPR, authorities have made no mention of it being COVID-19.

The Russian Embassy in Pyongyang posted on its Facebook page a notice from the authorities. It says the lockdown will last from Wednesday until Sunday.

Residents are advised to stay at home and take and report their temperatures four times a day.

North Korea admitted its first COVID outbreak last May. It claimed victory over the disease by August, but experts remain skeptical of that claim.

12:53 p.m.: Homeless 'point-in-time' count in Los Angeles continues its second year after pandemic

Los Angeles County’s annual count of homeless residents is underway, according to the Associated Press.

Up to 6,000 clipboard-toting volunteers with the LA Homeless Services Authority fanned out across the county Tuesday night for the effort’s main component, the unsheltered street tally.

The “point-in-time” count will take place over three days. LA’s new mayor, Karen Bass, recently declared a state of emergency on homelessness.

The 2022 count reported more than 69,000 people were homeless on any given night in LA County, a 4.1% rise from 2020. About 42,000 were within the city of Los Angeles, where public frustration has grown as tents have been popping up on sidewalks, in parks and other locations.

Sacramento's 2022 point in time count, the first since the start of the pandemic, found a 67% increase in the county's homeless population.

The 2021 count in both Los Angeles and Sacramento were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Homelessness remains hugely visible throughout the state, with people living in tents and cars and sleeping outdoors.

11:16 a.m.: FDA considering major change to COVID-19 vaccination schedule

The Food and Drug Administration is considering a major shift in the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine strategy.

As reported by NPR, the goal is to simplify vaccination against COVID and perhaps adopt an approach similar to what is used for the flu vaccine, with annual updates to match whatever strain of the virus is circulating.

This is according to a federal official who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

NPR reported the proposed shift early Monday morning, and later Monday, the FDA outlined it publicly in a set of documents released in advance of a meeting Thursday of the agency’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. 

Currently, those who want to be fully vaccinated against COVID must first get their primary vaccinations — two shots of the original vaccine spaced weeks apart. That’s followed at least two months later by a booster, currently the bivalent shot that’s tailored to protect against omicron.

Under the new approach, most would be advised to simply get whatever the latest version of the vaccine is annually each fall, like the flu vaccine.

1:01 p.m.: California to start closing COVID-19 testing sites

California is preparing to close dozens of state-run COVID-19 testing and treatment sites ahead of the planned end of the state of emergency in February.

Sites that are operating under 50% capacity are scheduled to close before the end of January. Forty-four OptumServe sites will be shuttered this week, and 48 mobile “mini-buses” will begin closing in two weeks.

OptumServe, a health care operations company, runs 123 testing and treatment sites along with four vaccination clinics through state contracts.

1:03 p.m.: Scientists say you can develop COVID-19 and the flu simultaneously

If you know someone in your family or social circle is sick right now, they likely have either COVID, the flu, a cold or RSV. With rolling waves of sickness hitting many households, some are wondering: Could I have caught more than one of these germs at the same time?

The answer is yes. As reported by NPR, there’s plenty of evidence of people testing positive for COVID and the flu, or something like the flu and RSV simultaneously.

The risk for multiple infections is especially high this year because so many viruses have been surging together.

It’s unclear how often this happens because most testing of this sort is done on hospitalized patients who probably aren’t representative of the general public. However, some studies have found coinfections in up to 20% of those patients.

11:15 a.m.: WHO asks China to release more information about current COVID-19 surge

The World Health Organization has appealed to China to keep releasing information about its recent wave of COVID-19 infections.

As reported by the Associated Press, this comes after the government announced nearly 60,000 virus-related deaths since early December following weeks of complaints China was failing to tell the world what was happening.

The announcement gave the first official numbers since the ruling Community Party abruptly dropped anti-virus restrictions despite a surge in infections that flooded hospitals.

A WHO statement said the information “allows for better understanding” of the epidemic and asked China to continue sharing this type of detailed information.

11:28 a.m.: Nearly 16 million people have signed up for the Affordable Care Act this year

The Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces just hit a record: nearly 16 million people have signed up for the insurance, as reported by NPR.

That’s about a million more people than signed up for ACA health insurance last year. Enrollment is still open in California on healthcare.gov until Jan. 31.

What’s driving the upward trend? The big reason is that plans are cheaper than they used to be. The federal government has pumped billions of dollars into subsidies to keep costs down for consumers.

Health officials say 4 out of 5 of those enrolled qualify for plans that cost $10 a month or less, and 5 million people who are uninsured would qualify for zero-dollar premium plans.

12:04 p.m.: New COVID variant infections overtake RSV, flu cases

As the new year begins and the depths of winter approaches, U.S. infectious disease experts monitoring the “tripledemic” stew of viruses that’ve been plaguing the country say there’s good news — and bad.

NPR reports that the worst appears to be over from the RSV surge. Cases have been falling steadily since the end of November, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The flu also seems like it’s finally receding in most places after it surged earlier this fall.

However, in bad news, COVID-19 is once again concerning health experts. The rate at which coronavirus is being detected in wastewater has tripled or quadrupled in parts of the U.S.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have jumped 70%, and 300 to 400 people die daily from COVID.

To make matters worse, all of this is happening as another new, even more transmissible variant has taken over — XBB.1.5. New estimates from the CDC say XBB1.5 now accounts for almost a third of new infections and is the dominant variant in the Northeast.

12:44 p.m.: Sacramento restaurants can apply for city grants to build outdoor dining patios

Early on in the COVID pandemic, the city of Sacramento allowed temporary dining on sidewalks and parking spots, but now the city is encouraging restaurants to build permanent patios with the Al Fresco Dining Grant Program.

City Council unanimously approved the new program Tuesday night. Restaurant owners can apply for up to $20,000 from the city through this June. However, the outdoor dining areas need to be built before June 2024.

Funding for the grants comes from COVID-relief funds in the American Rescue Plan act. The council ultimately approved a total of $1.7 million for the outdoor dining grant program.

You can learn more about the city's Al Fresco Dining Program and apply for the patio grants on the city's website.

6:02 p.m.: Sacramento drivers still spending less time in traffic than before the pandemic

Commuters in the Sacramento region were stuck in traffic for an average of 36 hours during 2022, an increase over last year but still less than before the pandemic, according to a new report.

That fit in with most other cities in the United States, where time in traffic congestion is still down almost half from 2019, according to the 2022 Global Traffic Scorecard by the mobility analytics firm INRIX. The average driver in the U.S. spent 51 hours in traffic in 2022, up 15 hours from 2021. 

Bob Pishue, transportation analyst at INRIX, told NPR that the rise in gas prices helped slow the increase back to pre-pandmeic commute levels.

"2022 was shaping up to be a year of re-emergence and a return to a new, post-pandemic behavioral norm, but that halted with the rise in oil prices, supply chain disruptions, and inflation," Pishue said.

In Sacramento, average congestion time was up 44% from 2021, but down that same amount from 2019. Those 36 hours of traffic ranked 25th in the U.S. 

Chicago topped the U.S. list at 156 hours lost, with Los Angeles and San Francisco sixth and seventh at around 90 hours.

12:11 p.m.: Travelers, families reunite as China eases reopening restrictions

First international travelers are arriving in China without the mandatory quarantine that had been imposed at the start of the pandemic three years ago.

According to the Associated Press, the easing of border restrictions comes even as the virus continues to spread in China amid what critics say is a lack of transparency from Beijing.

More foreign governments are imposing testing requirements on travelers from China — most recently Germany, Sweden and Portugal.

On Sunday, thousands of travelers from semi-autonomous Hong Kong crossed into mainland China, some having been separated from their families since the pandemic.

Like other passengers from abroad, they still have to show a negative test result taken within 48 hours — a measure China has protested when imposed by other countries.

10:23 a.m.: Sacramento City Schools will not require masks for students after winter break

Sacramento City Unified School District students will not be required to wear masks when they return from winter break on Monday after Sacramento County avoided the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's highest COVID-19 risk level.

On Dec. 22, the CDC placed Sacramento County into the "high" community level, a measurement of COVID-19 risk that considers the number of cases in an area and the capacity of local hospitals. SCUSD policy states that when the county's risk level is high, students and staff must wear masks indoors.

District officials did not require masks for students on Dec. 23, the last school day before the winter break, but said they would if the county remained at the highest risk level when students returned.

Last week the CDC moved Sacramento County to the "medium" level and it remained there Thursday, according to new figures released by the CDC showing cases and hospitalizations continuing to decline, though remaining elevated. The CDC releases new rankings every Thursday.

No California counties remain in the highest COVID-19 risk level after Los Angeles and Imperial were moved to medium this week. At the medium level, health officials recommend anyone who is immunocompromised or at increased risk of becoming sick wear a mask or respirator in indoor public spaces.

12:13 p.m.: Hospitals run out of beds as COVID-19 spreads through China again

The COVID-19 outbreak is stretching China's public health facilities.

At the Chuiyangliu hospital east of Beijing on Thursday, beds ran out by midmorning, even as ambulances continued to bring more people in, the Associated Press reported.

Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases. Last month, China abandoned its most severe pandemic restrictions after nearly three years of lockdowns, travel bans and school closures.

Those actions have taken a heavy toll on the economy and prompted street protests not seen since late 1982. The European Union has "strongly encouraged" its member states to require COVID-19 testing of passengers from China, which responded by warnings of "countermeasures" if such policies were imposed.