Former Councilmember John Duran has been doing daily COVID updates on his Facebook page since March 2020. Many members of the community have found them helpful. They are republished here with his permission.
| LA County Cases | 1,246,821 | (up from 1,246,619) |
| LA County Deaths | 24,421 | (up from 24,416) |
| LA Positivity Rate | .4% | (unchanged at .4%) |
| LA Hospitalizations | 216 | (up from 218) |
415 new COVID Cases announced yesterday along with 20 additional deaths. Positivity rate remains low and unchanged at .7%. Hospitalizations hover at 379 – slightly up.
SHECESSION
First off – Happy Mothers’ Day to all the Moms. Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom in heaven and all the other Moms who have passed on. My Mom remains one of the most inspirational figures in my lifetime. I miss her every day.
Front page of the LA Times today – “SHECESSION” hits women’s finances – and just in time for Mothers’ Day?!!! The article tells the story of how COVID has set back decades of progress on workplace equality for women.
Before COVID, all Californians enjoyed the same unemployment rate of 4.1%. But today, 10.4% of men have lost jobs statewide. Women have suffered more at 12% unemployed. And now women are asking some very important questions: Is it safe to return to work? Can I find a comparable position? Do I really want to do what I was doing before?
The “new normal” is not going to be what life was like before March of 2020 in so many places and events. The recession of 2007-2008 primarily hit male dominated sectors such as construction and manufacturing. But this pandemic recession is hitting the service oriented industries ranging from tourism, hotels, restaurants, hairdressers and housekeepers – all jobs where women usually dominate.
Experts are predicting it is going to take 18 months or longer for the economy to bounce back entirely. In the annual Women in the Workplace study conducted by Mckinsey, 25% of women say they are contemplating “down sizing” their careers or leaving the workforce completely.
Women of color (more than 60% of Californian’s female population) got hit the hardest. In March 2021, 13.4% of Latinas, 12.8 of Black women and 12.5% of Asian women were unemployed. White women were only 11.5% unemployed.
Jobs in LA County’s leisure and hospitality sector are slowly coming back. But they remain 27% below their pre pandemic peak. The sectors has shed 150,000 jobs in LA county since the beginning of the pandemic.
Whether women were low wage or high wage workers, they assumed most of the care taking burden as COVID sickened the elderly and forced schools and day care centers to close. Mothers dropped out of the work force at higher rates than women without children.
Sadly, it appears that the gains made for women’s equality in the work force, pay equity and representation in leadership and boards of directors – have all been set back. It is going to take some time to recover in all these areas.
DEVELOPING THE NEXT VACCINES
Today in the LA Times – a full page ad from Immunity Bio seeking volunteers for upcoming clinical trials on new COVID 19 vaccines. Immunity bio wants to test a new oral capsule instead of injection drug. The trial is designed to study the combination of administration route (injection, capsule, liquid) and dose for maximizing immune response to the COVID 19 virus.
Interested people should visit Tcellvaccine.com or clinical trials.gov-NCT04732468 for additional details
Sunny and 74 degrees in LA Today. Enjoy your MOTHERS’ DAY!
With all the businesses closed forever, this economy will never return (or bounce back) to entirety.
The world has changed, and the big companies are gobbling up the carcasses of the small ones. If not yet, they will devour the lot.
How is WeHo doing with infections and deaths?