With coronavirus cases and related hospitalizations climbing nationwide, is California also headed for a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic?
The Midwest, New England and the New York areas have faced troubling rises in coronavirus cases, and some have expressed concern that Los Angeles County has previously been only a few weeks behind trends coming out of New York. In the last week, average daily coronavirus cases nationally are up 5% over the previous week and the change in new COVID-19 hospitalizations is up 7%.
But so far, California remains in good shape, relatively speaking. California has one of the lowest average daily coronavirus case rates in the nation over the most recent seven-day period, while Michigan’s case rate — the worst in the nation — is 12 times higher than California’s, placing growing strain on hospitals there.
One factor that might be helping California — for reasons not fully understood — is the presence of the California variant. The California variant here might be helping to keep a lid on the U.K. variant, which is believed to be more transmissible than the conventional strains of the coronavirus and likely results in a greater chance of death.
Read the full story at LATimes.com.