Welcome to the 102nd issue of the California Coronavirus Weekly Recap newsletter.  

​​​​​​In This Issue:

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The Economy & Your Finances: U.S. unemployment rises; CA EDD cuts call center hours; CA EDD to stop using facial recognitionApplications for unemployment benefits across the U.S. rose by 23,000 (10.2 percent) to 248,000 last week, ending weeks of declines but remaining below pre-pandemic levels. However, the four-week moving average for initial claims fell to 243,250, down 10,500 (4.1 percent). In total, fewer than 1.6 million Americans were collecting jobless aid the week of Feb. 5, a decrease of about 26,000 (1.6 percent) from the previous week. Even as the Omicron variant spread quickly earlier this winter, employers have been eager to hire. The winter spike in infections briefly tripped up the country’s recovery from 2020’s recession, but employers seem confident in long-term growth.

California’s Employment Development Department (EDD) announced that it will be cutting back its call center hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week to 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, starting March 3. The reason given for cutting hours is that since federal benefit programs ended last year, call volume has dropped dramatically. Calls to the service are down 95 percent from a year ago, from 27 million in January 2021 to 1.3 million calls in January 2022. EDD plans to shift call center staff from the unused evening and weekend hours to resolving eligibility issues. 

California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office is recommending that the Employment Development Department (EDD) consider stopping its use of a facial recognition program called ID.me, that digitally compares a person’s selfie to the documents in their application. ID.me was introduced to reduce incidences of fraud in unemployment applications, and the analyst’s report found that it was effective. However, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced that it would move away from using facial recognition technology to authenticate information for new online accounts. 

​Sources: OPB, Investopedia, Modesto Bee, Security Infowatch, IRS.gov
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The Market & Industry: CA housing market bounces back; housing affordability rose Q4 2021; material shortages plague builders but confidence still strong  

The California housing market kicked off the new year with a bounce back from a 4-month low, with sales of existing single-family homes reaching 444,450, registering a month-to-month increase of 3.4 percent in January. Sales continued to decline on a year-over-year basis, but the dip was less than 10 percent and was the smallest in six months. California home prices continued to decelerate as the seasonal slowdown continued, with the statewide median price declining 3.8 percent from December to $765,580 in January, but still improving from a year ago by 9.4 percent.

Housing affordability in California inched up in Q4 2021 as the statewide median price dipped on a quarter-to-quarter basis for the second straight quarter. The monthly mortgage payment for a median-priced home (including taxes and insurance) declined slightly from Q3 2021, despite interest rates rising by more than 20 basis points from the previous quarter. The state housing affordability index increased by a percentage point from the previous quarter but fell 2 percentage points from the same quarter of last year to 25 percent in Q4 2021. A solid increase in the state’s median household income also improved the affordability outlook temporarily at the end of 2021. With home prices and interest rates expected to be higher in 2022, however, the affordability level will likely decline this year. 

Builder confidence dipped as shortages of building material and labor continued to raise construction costs and delay projects. Despite the index falling one point to 82 in February, it continued to stay above the 80-point high mark for the fifth consecutive month. The elevated level of builder confidence is reflected by the strong number of building permits in January, which climbed 0.7 percent to 1.9 million units. The increase was driven primarily by single-family units, which jumped 6.8 percent month-over-month, but declined 5 percent on a year-over-year basis. Housing starts fell 4.1 percent in January with single-family dropping 5.6 percent and accounted for much of the overall drop. Even with the decline, single-family starts remain even with last year’s pace.
 
Sources: C.A.R. Market Minute, C.A.R. Weekly Market Update, National Association of Home Builders ​​​​​​

Around the State: State releases plan for next phase of the virus; where masks are still required; cases dropping quickly 

Last Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the release of the first large state’s plan for the next phase of COVID-19 response, “California SMARTER.” The plan entails seven things that will allow the state to move forward, including shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education and Rx (medications to treat COVID-19 infections). Together, the first letters of each of those words form the acronym SMARTER. The 30-page plan acknowledges that the virus is unpredictable and might require using different interventions at different times, now that we are moving from the first two years’ emergency condition to an endemic condition in which many people have some immunity due to vaccinations or prior infection or both. Officials will monitor the virus’s activities through wastewater surveillance, and they will genetically sequence at least 10 percent of coronavirus specimens to watch for new variants. In addition, the state will stockpile 75 million high-quality masks and maintain the capacity to administer at least 500,000 coronavirus tests and 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines per day. 

While last week the state of California dropped its requirement for universal masking indoors (for those who are vaccinated), everyone is still required to wear masks on public transit, in stations, terminals and airports; indoors in K-12 schools and childcare facilities; healthcare settings; state and local correctional facilities and detention centers; homeless shelters; long-term care settings and adult- and senior-care facilities. Thus, students, faculty and staff at schools must still wear masks when inside. The state will consider on Feb. 28 whether to change the schools policy from requiring masks to strongly encouraging them, as the number of new COVID-19 cases have dropped by 75 percent since mid-January. Though California has 12 percent of the nation’s public-school students, it has only had 1 percent of the nation’s school closures. 

A few places in California maintain for now universal indoor masking mandates (regardless of vaccination status), including Los Angeles County, though that could change next month. Los Angeles Unified School District is now allowing students and staff to remove their masks while outside on school grounds, but everyone must still wear masks indoors. 

As of 10:30 p.m. yesterday, there had been 8,907,519 reported cases of COVID-19 in the state, for a daily average of 11,118. This is 65.9 percent lower than two weeks prior. Hospitalizations statewide continue to drop, to 5,655, which is 29.1 percent fewer than the last week. Statewide, 20.5 percent of ICU beds are available. California has administered 70,105,368 doses of the vaccine, and 78.2 percent of residents have received at least one dose. Over the last seven days, an average of 45,147 vaccine doses have been given per day. Among all Californians, 70.5 percent are fully vaccinated. 

Sources: Los Angeles Times, CA.gov, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee
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Health Check-Up: New COVID-19 cases plummet 90 percent in 5 weeks; where to schedule your booster 

New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have plummeted 90 percent from the pandemic record set with the Omicron variant just five weeks ago, from 802,000 new cases daily on Jan.15, 2022 to 84,000 new cases daily, according to data reported by Johns Hopkins University. The decline is widespread across the nation, with average daily cases down by at least 40 percent in all U.S. regions over the last two weeks. Hospitalizations are also down nationwide, from 159,000 to 66,000. Even deaths from the coronavirus are falling, below 2,000 per day. Several states are dropping some aspects of masking mandates, though mask-wearing is still strongly encouraged – especially until the youngest children can get vaccinated. Experts caution that other variants could still arise and gain prominence, such as BA.2, that might slow down the recovery rate and trigger increasing precautions again. However, at this point, most people have some form of immunity, either by vaccination or by prior infections, or both. Now that vaccines and medicines are available to prevent or treat COVID-19 infections, all the onerous protections undertaken at national, state and local levels (such as quarantining, masking, maintaining social distancing) have achieved what they were intended to do, which was to buy time for the scientific and medical communities to invent new ways to help us deal with this once-novel virus.

To get vaccinated or boosted, visit California’s vaccination website, myturn.ca.gov, which is offering appointments for people aged 5 and up. Vaccinations are also available at walk-in clinics, doctors’ offices and pharmacies. Some counties have their own vaccine scheduling or information websites, such as L.A. County’s scheduling site, San Francisco’s scheduling site, San Diego County’s information site, Orange County’s information site, and Sacramento County’s information site.

Sources:  CNBC, The Guardian, L.A. County Dept. of Public Health, SF.gov, San Diego County, Orange County, Sacramento County Dept. of Public Health