What to Know About California’s Covid Surge

Editor’s note: Starting next week, California Today will have a new look. It will still arrive in your inbox every weekday morning and feature a curated collection of New York Times articles about the state, but it will no longer include a staff-written introduction each day. For more details, please read Monday’s newsletter.

Once again, we’re in the middle of a summer Covid-19 surge.

This shouldn’t be surprising: Since 2020, there has been a swell in cases in the winter and again in the summer. But given how back to normal California can feel nowadays, hearing about rising Covid cases can catch some of us off guard.

Here’s what you need to know.

Covid never stopped circulating in our communities, and new variants continue to regularly appear on the scene. Currently, two of these variants, known as KP.3 and KP.2, are gaining traction and have been fueling a nationwide rise in cases since May.

We know that cases are rising because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tests sewage for the virus at more than 1,000 wastewater sites across the country, which provides a window into viral trends in a community. This data has become particularly useful as people increasingly take Covid tests at home and may not report their results. And wastewater surveillance can detect Covid in a region even when people aren’t experiencing symptoms or testing.

The wastewater data shows that as of early July, Covid levels nationwide were about as high as they were in March, at the tail end of the last winter surge. The C.D.C. considers that level of spread to be high.

In California, however, Covid levels are considered very high by the C.D.C., according to data from the state’s 43 wastewater reporting sites. There are only three states — Florida, Nevada and Oregon — where Covid is spreading at higher rates, the data shows. The last time levels were this elevated in California was in January, much closer to the peak of our winter surge.

So what to do?

Most of us now have several layers of immunity against the Covid virus through vaccines, past infections or both, so if we are infected again the risk of serious illness is much lower than it once was.

But catching Covid still carries the risk of developing long Covid, and it can lead to hospitalization or death for people who are older or immunocompromised. In July, the percentage of deaths in California that were attributed to Covid spiked, according to state data. (The C.D.C. recommends a booster shot for people 65 and older.)

So watch out for the usual symptoms: sneezing, congestion, headaches, exhaustion, sore muscles, nausea or vomiting. My colleague Dani Blum wrote a great article about how Covid can feel very different each time you have it, so don’t assume that because your symptoms aren’t the same as last time you’re not infected.

Make sure you test if you’re feeling sick, and, if you’re positive, avoid close contact with other people. Ask your doctor about medications that can hasten your recovery, and rest as much as possible. Don’t push yourself, says Dr. Davey Smith, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Diego.

“Some people like to take long walks,” Smith told The New York Times. “I just stay in bed and read a book. Basically, you just suffer through it.”

The rest of the news

• Representative Adam Schiff, a top House Democrat running for Senate in California, became the latest within the party to call for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race.

• The Navy exonerated 258 Black sailors who were unfairly convicted after they objected to working following an explosion at a port near San Francisco in 1944.

• X Corp., the parent company of the social media site X, owned by Elon Musk, asked a federal appeals court to revive its challenge of a California law that requires large social media companies to publish their content moderation policies, Reuters reports. A lower court judge declined to block the law last year.

Southern California

• The Chino Valley Unified School District has sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over a new law that prevents educators from having to inform parents of their child’s gender identity changes, The Associated Press reports. A spokesperson for the governor called the lawsuit “deeply unserious.”

• Bob Iger, Walt Disney’s chief executive, and his wife, Willow Bay, dean of U.S.C.’s school for communication and journalism, bought a controlling stake in Angel City F.C. at a valuation of $250 million, which the Los Angeles team says makes it the most valuable women’s sports team in the world.

Northern California

• We mapped heat in three U.S. cities. Here’s where sidewalks in Sacramento topped 130 degrees.

• An Oakland woman was among six people found dead by cyanide poisoning in a Bangkok hotel, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

And before you go, some good news

Noah and Olivia were the most popular boy and girl names in California in 2023, according to recently released data from the Social Security Administration.

Other names on the Top 10 list included Liam, Mateo and Sebastian for boys, and Mia, Camila and Emma for girls, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The data shows that while the most popular girl names have remained largely the same for the past decade, it’s a very different story for boys. The only boy name that made the Top 10 list in 2013 and has remained there since is Noah.

Parents have long been reluctant to give their boys creative names, but that gender gap has shrunk in the past generation, said Laura Wattenberg, a baby-naming expert and author of “The Baby Name Wizard.”

Noah, she told the news outlet, “embodies the sound of the moment, which is very light and smooth, dominated by vowels. There aren’t many classic boys’ names in that category.”

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.

Halina Bennet and Luke Caramanico contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.