Its been more than four months sinceLos AngelesCountysCovidState of Emergencyofficially ended, and a lot has changed.
Most importantly, unlike the previous three years, there was no significant summer spike in cases.
Fall, however, may be a slightly different story.
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Very true.
Again, the numbers are low, rising from 202 average daily cases in July to 333 last week.
That means thousands fewer maskless people are in close proximity every day.
(The industrys Covid protocols endedon May 11.)
Test positivity is also rising.
Testing remains very low by historical levels.
But there has been a steady rise over the past two weeks.
See the chart below.
One wild card is the resumption of classes for fall at LAUSD campuses yesterday.
That CDC modeling puts EG.5 at 17.3% and growing as of August 5.
Its worth noting that the proportion of XBB.1.1.6 is falling in the region, according to CDC projections.
EG.5 is not currently considered more virulent than other variants.
WHO indicates the risk of the variant having an increased growth advantage over others is moderate.
