The county said the policy would apply to some non-essential businesses and other venues.
KING COUNTY, Wash. King County is developing COVID-19 vaccine verification requirements in conjunction with the community and organizations for non-essential businesses and venues, which would go into effect in October.
The announcement, made Tuesday morning by Executive Dow Constantine, said Public Health - Seattle & King County is developing the policy after jurisdictions such as New York City, San Francisco and British Columbia in Canada implemented similar requirements.
The county said that it will announce the full details of the policy after engaging with community organizations, labor unions, businesses, and cities to gather feedback.
Non-essential indoor and outdoor spaces are where people gather in close proximity for a prolonged period of time, according to the county.
Once the policy is announced, unvaccinated residents will be given five weeks to complete their vaccination series before the requirements take effect, which will likely be in October.
Were at a critical point in the pandemic. In a county where more than four out of five eligible residents have taken advantage of the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID, vaccine verification is the best way for businesses and gatherings to remain open, vibrant, and at full capacity, said Constantine.
On Tuesday, the countys outdoor mask mandate took effect, requiring face coverings for everyone regardless of vaccination status at outdoor events with 500 or more people.
Additionally, in a Tuesday briefing, the Washington State Hospital Association revealed that the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the state is far higher than its ever been at 1,674 patients, a 7% increase in just one week.
The surge has been driven almost entirely by the delta variant and the unvaccinated.
COVID-19 vaccines are safe, highly effective, and readily available, and verifying vaccination in certain non-essential, high-risk settings can make those places safer for the public, workers, and our community, including children who are not currently eligible for vaccination, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said in a release.
King County is among the most vaccinated large counties in the country. Various sports teams in the region and venues announced Tuesday that they wouldimplement vaccination or testing requirements, as well.
The latest data shows that more than 84% of eligible King County residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
At a time when misinformation is abundant, it can be difficult to navigate what is true and what is false. False claims about the COVID-19 vaccines, testing and masks are everywhere from social media postings to public comment during community meetings and hearings at the statehouse."Just be careful where you're getting your information from," said Dr. Stephen Blatt, medical director for Infectious Diseases for TriHealth. Infectious diseases have been his specialty for approximately 35 years. WLWT took several comments from recent hearings we've covered to Blatt, to sort out fact from fiction. A father recently made a claim during a school board meeting that "the CDC itself has put out that these PCR tests cannot tell the difference between influenza and COVID.""That's just not true. The PCR tests are highly sensitive and highly specific. You can tell the difference between COVID and influenza by using a PCR test," Blatt said. "The PCR tests are really the best way to tell if a person has flu or if the person has COVID."During a recent hearing at the Ohio Statehouse, a man said, "The mRNA vaccines have never been on market anywhere in the world. mRNA vaccines have been tested in humans before for at least four infectious diseases: rabbies, influenza, cytomegalovirus and Zika. So all of a sudden, we're supposed to roll up our sleeves to take a vaccine that has never been on market before, just tested on humans?" Blatt said this statement is accurate. "They were testing the mRNA vaccines in a number of different viral infections, and they were not urgently testing them because those infections were not causing a pandemic. When COVID came around and a pandemic was obvious, we needed a vaccine quickly to try to shut down transmission of COVID," he said. "They were undergoing clinical trials, but they had not been -- requested to be FDA approved yet, because those trials were still enrolling patients."A lot of confusion surrounds VAERS, the vaccine adverse event reporting system that anyone can utilize to self-report symptoms after being vaccinated."What the VAERS system does is anybody who has what they think is a side effect from the vaccine can fill out a form or do it online and get their information uploaded into the VAERS system. They also monitor patients who have passed away following a vaccine or had any other significant disability following a vaccine," Blatt said. "So the VAERS system, even though those numbers are accurate, it doesn't tell you that they died from the vaccine. It just tells you that they died. They probably died of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, all sorts of things completely unrelated to the vaccines."The VAERS database currently shows thousands of deaths have been reported in people who received the COVID-19 vaccine."If you got the Gardasil vaccine and got in your car to drive home and died in a car accident, it gets reported that you died after the Gardasil vaccine. It's not from the vaccine. It was from the car accident. The same goes for the COVID vaccine. Anybody who passes away in the months following COVID vaccine gets reported to the VAERS database," Blatt said. During a recent public comment period at the Ohio Statehouse, a representative asked a medical professional the following: "I can't imagine seeing children die in a hospital. It has to be gut-wrenching. I can't even imagine, especially if it was my own child. But on the other hand, isn't it just as important for us to be aware of the fact that taking the vaccine has killed children as well?"I'm not aware of any mortality in children who have gotten the vaccine," Blatt said. "There certainly have been cases of children who died from the disease itself."An August report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention elaborates. It reads that 8.9 million 12-17 years olds have received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine so far. Of the 8.9 million, 14 deaths have been reported. Each is being investigated by CDC physicians. Two have already been ruled suicide and six others have a listed cause of death, varying medical issues. The remaining six list an unknown or pending cause of death.
At a time when misinformation is abundant, it can be difficult to navigate what is true and what is false.
False claims about the COVID-19 vaccines, testing and masks are everywhere from social media postings to public comment during community meetings and hearings at the statehouse.
"Just be careful where you're getting your information from," said Dr. Stephen Blatt, medical director for Infectious Diseases for TriHealth. Infectious diseases have been his specialty for approximately 35 years. WLWT took several comments from recent hearings we've covered to Blatt, to sort out fact from fiction.
A father recently made a claim during a school board meeting that "the CDC itself has put out that these PCR tests cannot tell the difference between influenza and COVID."
"That's just not true. The PCR tests are highly sensitive and highly specific. You can tell the difference between COVID and influenza by using a PCR test," Blatt said. "The PCR tests are really the best way to tell if a person has flu or if the person has COVID."
During a recent hearing at the Ohio Statehouse, a man said, "The mRNA vaccines have never been on market anywhere in the world. mRNA vaccines have been tested in humans before for at least four infectious diseases: rabbies, influenza, cytomegalovirus and Zika. So all of a sudden, we're supposed to roll up our sleeves to take a vaccine that has never been on market before, just tested on humans?"
Blatt said this statement is accurate.
"They were testing the mRNA vaccines in a number of different viral infections, and they were not urgently testing them because those infections were not causing a pandemic. When COVID came around and a pandemic was obvious, we needed a vaccine quickly to try to shut down transmission of COVID," he said. "They were undergoing clinical trials, but they had not been -- requested to be FDA approved yet, because those trials were still enrolling patients."
A lot of confusion surrounds VAERS, the vaccine adverse event reporting system that anyone can utilize to self-report symptoms after being vaccinated.
"What the VAERS system does is anybody who has what they think is a side effect from the vaccine can fill out a form or do it online and get their information uploaded into the VAERS system. They also monitor patients who have passed away following a vaccine or had any other significant disability following a vaccine," Blatt said. "So the VAERS system, even though those numbers are accurate, it doesn't tell you that they died from the vaccine. It just tells you that they died. They probably died of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, all sorts of things completely unrelated to the vaccines."
The VAERS database currently shows thousands of deaths have been reported in people who received the COVID-19 vaccine.
"If you got the Gardasil vaccine and got in your car to drive home and died in a car accident, it gets reported that you died after the Gardasil vaccine. It's not from the vaccine. It was from the car accident. The same goes for the COVID vaccine. Anybody who passes away in the months following COVID vaccine gets reported to the VAERS database," Blatt said.
During a recent public comment period at the Ohio Statehouse, a representative asked a medical professional the following: "I can't imagine seeing children die in a hospital. It has to be gut-wrenching. I can't even imagine, especially if it was my own child. But on the other hand, isn't it just as important for us to be aware of the fact that taking the vaccine has killed children as well?
"I'm not aware of any mortality in children who have gotten the vaccine," Blatt said. "There certainly have been cases of children who died from the disease itself."
An August report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention elaborates. It reads that 8.9 million 12-17 years olds have received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine so far. Of the 8.9 million, 14 deaths have been reported. Each is being investigated by CDC physicians. Two have already been ruled suicide and six others have a listed cause of death, varying medical issues. The remaining six list an unknown or pending cause of death.
LOGAN-TRIVOLI, Ill. (WMBD) -- Logan-Trivoli Firefighters responded to a fire near Eden and Pleasant Grove Road Wednesday.
According to a press release from Logan-Trivoli Fire Protection District Fire Chief David Tuttle, firefighters saw smoke coming from the attic when they arrived on the scene at approximately 11:24 a.m.
COVID-19 and children under 12: How the pandemic affects the unvaccinated
COVID-19 cases have spiked among children especially those under 12 who are unvaccinated. Heres how to protect them.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 5,781new coronavirus cases Monday for the period Friday through Sunday.The highly contagious delta variant is fuelingnew cases.
On Monday, the state reported 125new coronavirus-related deaths. Seventy-six deaths occurred between July 23and Sept. 4, according to the health department's website. Forty-nine deaths occurred between Aug. 1and Aug. 30, as identified from death certificate reports.
COVID-19 in MS: 'Not nearly as bad as predicted': Already packed hospitals avoid further crowding from Ida
Since COVID-19 hit the state in March 2020, a total of 452,664COVID-19 cases and 8,664coronavirus-related deaths have been reported.
The health department on Monday reported 146 outbreaks at Mississippi nursinghomes. There have been 10,993cases of the coronavirus in long-term care facilitiesand 2,047deaths reported as of Monday.
According to aNew York Times database, at least 377new coronavirus deaths and 44,417 new cases were reported in the U.S. on Sunday. Over the past week, there has been an average of 161,327cases per day,an increase of 8% from two weeks prior.
Residents between the ages of 25 and 39represent the largest portion of the infected population in the state,with 101,441cases reported Friday, the latest figureavailable.
Among patients under18, children between the ages of 11 and 17 have the highest infection rate, with 40,615cases identified. The 65 and older age group has the highest total number of deaths with 6,227reported.
According tohealth department data, at least 1,433,469people began thevaccination process in Mississippias of Thursday. Since December, about 1,185,057people have been fully immunized against COVID-19. At least 28,002have received a third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
Approximately 372,119 people are presumed recovered from the virus as of Tuesday, according tothe health department's website.
Read More: No COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public Mississippi universities for now, board says
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Harrison County numbers have steadily climbed, overtaking Hinds County to record the highest number of reported cases with 30,666; Hinds County follows with 29,896cases. DeSoto County is reporting 28,381cases. Jackson County is reporting 21,932cases and Rankin County has 20,526total cases.
Daily number of new deaths: 2
Daily number of new cases: 374
Total deaths: 543
Total cases:29,896
Daily number of new deaths: 3
Daily number of new cases: 189
Total deaths:259
Total cases:13,607
Daily number of new deaths: 9
Daily number of new cases: 334
Total deaths:338
Total cases:20,526
Have an education-relatednews tip? Contact Keisha Rowe at nrowe@gannett.com, on Twitter or at (601) 760-2483.
Dave Golowenski| Special to The Columbus Dispatch
The fact that a significant percentage of wild Ohio deer tested last winter were positive forSARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus pathogen that causes COVID-19 in people, doesnt necessarily change the hunting game when the 2021-22 whitetail season opens later this month.
Prudent hunters, however, should wear rubber or throwaway surgical gloves when field-dressing a downed animal. And thats only one of several just-in-case precautions being recommended by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
That's because what was found in the wild deer captured by Ohio State Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine with test results confirmed at a federal lab is in fact the same virus identified in late 2019 at the start of a global outbreak, said Mike Tonkovich, the wildlife divisions deer project leader.
None of the infected Ohio deer showed signs of disease.
People arent consistently as fortunate. Infection symptoms range from none to hospitalization and death. COVIDis officially blamed for almost 650,000 deaths in the United States and around 4.5 million worldwide.
SARS-CoV-2 is known to infect a number of wild and domesticated animals, some more readily than others. Deer, it turns out, are among the creatures that, like humans, are prone to the pathogen.
Researchers earlierthis year noteda high degree of similarity between the SARS-CoV-2 receptor in humans and deer, and they demonstrated in lab testing that deer arehighly susceptible to infection.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture study conducted around the same time showed abouta third of the hundreds of deer sampled between January 2020 and March 2021 in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan and Illinois possessedSARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
What made the Ohio deer results unique was thatthe active SARS-CoV-2 virus was discovered, not merely antibodies, and the virus wasfound in about 35 percent of the animals. Those tests, of course, offer a snapshot of the Buckeye State deer landscape months ago, not a guidebook for what lies ahead.
While its probable that humans spread SARS-CoV-2 into the North American deer population, no evidence to this point indicates whitetails are infecting people, though that possibility remains.
Because deer dont exhibit overt symptoms from an active SARS-CoV-2 infection theres no way to know whether a deer has the disease. To this point, however, deerseem to pose little threat to hunters who take care.
Testing shows the coronavirus isn't present in blood, body muscle, lungs, kidneys, trachea or colon. Sources of infection are mostlythe nose, throat and upper respiratory areas.
Under such circumstances, wearing rubber gloves is a no-brainer. Equally important is keeping hands away from the face.
Dont eat. Dont smoke while field dressing, Tonkovich said. You might want to wear a face covering, he added.
outdoors@dispatch.com
Jacqueline Jackson, wife of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., has returned home after battling a case of COVID-19 that landed her in the intensive care unit for days, their son said in a statement.
Our family is grateful to God and the medical team that treated her and that is allowing her body to continue to heal from the COVID-19 virus, Jonathan Jackson said in a statement released Friday evening.
Mrs. Jackson was released from Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Friday.
Jesse Jackson, 79, and Jacqueline Jackson, 77, were hospitalized Aug. 21 after testing positive for the virus.
On Aug. 27, Jonathan Jackson revealed his mother had been moved to intensive care but was not on a ventilator. Then, on Aug. 30, he informed the media that she had been moved out of the ICU and back to her hospital room.
Meanwhile on Friday, Jonathan Jackson said his father remained at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, where he was transferred to undergo occupational and physical therapy for his Parkinsons disease as his COVID-19 symptoms abate.
While the civil rights icon publicly received a COVID-19 vaccination in early January, a longtime family spokesman said his wife was not inoculated.
In Jonathan Jacksons latest update, he urged supporters to get vaccinated and to keep his parents in their prayers.
The love that has been poured out to our family at this time of sickness and need from around the world has helped in our parents healing and for each of you who prayed and expressed concern we are grateful, even as we continue to express our love and concern for the millions of people who are victimized by the COVID-19 virus and its variants, he wrote. We remain prayerful for all of those who are suffering as a result.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) The coronavirus didnt upend some popular events in Pittsburgh this Labor Day weekend.
The Labor Day Parade in Pittsburgh was canceled, but food festivals and sporting events still went on, as the virus did not stop the crowds. People flocked to Pittsburgh for their favorite end-of-summer festivities.
Number one, the food. Number two, its a nice day. Number three, after pandemic stuff, being stuck in the house is no fun, said Leah DiLuca, who went to Heinz Field Kickoff and Rib Fest on Monday.
There were large crowds at Rib Fest, a smoky, five-day event outside of Heinz Field. Thousands lined up to bite into ribs from vendors from several states.
Im not really worried. Ive worked through the pandemic. I play sports in my free time, so it doesnt concern me anymore, DiLuca said.
I think its good for everybody to come out and be together again, making sure that we are vaccinated and if not, wearing masks are very important, said Ahmad Nelson, who was at Rib Fest.
The Soul Food Fest in Market Square was also held this weekend.
The University of Pittsburgh beat the University of Massachusetts Amherst at Heinz Field on Saturday, and Pirates fans cheered on the Bucs as they beat Detroit on Monday.
First time in a ballpark, we came from Puerto Rico. It was great, said Alfredo Perez on Monday. I hope everybody is careful and gets tested and got to get their shots. Its very important.
We had good tickets and we had a good time, said Frank Hanlin, who was also at the Pirates game. Im vaccinated and I have a mask in my pocket just in case anybody wants that, and I understand its common sense. I dont understand why people are resistant to it.
The CDC urged Americans to take precautions this Labor Day weekend to prevent a further spike in COVID-19 cases following the holiday.
The agency recommended that unvaccinated people not travel. If an unvaccinated person did travel, the CDC recommends that they get tested three to five days after travel and self-quarantine for seven days.
The CDC also suggests unvaccinated people who have taken part in activities where they cannot physically distance, like at large gatherings, should get tested for the virus.
I think everybody should try to be safe so we continue to enjoy everybodys company as well as bring events together, said Ryan Shane, who attended Rib Fest on Monday.
On Monday, the Allegheny County Health Department reported 912 new COVID-19 cases in the last 72 hours.
The intelligence community failed to conclusively identify the origin of the coronavirus following a 90-day investigation ordered by President Biden, but experts are divided on why.
A report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) found that officials were unable to rule whether the virus escaped from a lab or spread to humans through an infected animal.
But the ultimate conclusion reached by the $85 billion-a-year community was that it would be unable to pinpoint the origin of the virus if China didnt fully cooperate.
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY RELEASES INCONCLUSIVE COVID-19 ORIGIN REPORT
Klon Kitchen, a former intelligence officer with the ODNI, told Fox News it is in China's interest to continue to bar access to uncovering the origin of the virus.
"China is highly incentivized and capable of denying us this information," Kitchen said. "They're incentivized to deny us this information because no matter what it is whether it was a wet market or a biological facility as its origin it's embarrassing to the Chinese Communist Party."
"It would indicate and illustrate a level of incompetence or lack of control, and that goes to the fundamental kind of interest of the party," the senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute said.
Kitchen also pointed out that the intelligence community has seen substantial losses in intelligence-collecting abilities when it comes to China due to a colossal intelligence breach.
"Over the last decade, the United States has experienced a massive loss in our intelligence posture, in China," the former intelligence officer explained. "The CIA had an individual working for itwho it was later discovered was spying for the Chinese and had resulted in the loss of a massive human intelligence network inside of China."
EX-CIA OFFICER GETS 19 YEARS FOR CONSPIRING TO SPY FOR CHINA
In 2019, Jerry Chun Shing Lee was sentenced to 19 years in prison for conspiring to deliver classified information to China.
His sentencing is believed to be tied to the disappearances and killings of dozens of CIA informants between 2010 and 2012 in China.
"Just over the last decade or so, we have bled intelligence sources, and our posture of collection has really been greatly diminished," he added.
Kitchen said China has also greatly enhanced its abilities when it comes to technical surveillance in advanced cryptography and quantum computing.
But David Asher, who headed an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus for theOffice of the Secretary at the State Department,thinks the problem lies beyond the barriers that China has erected and argued the intelligence communitys investigation was lacking in nature.
"What the DNI did was not an all-source investigation, it was simply a deep dive into previously unanalyzed intelligence," Asher, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, said.
"They failed to illuminate further the previously declassified information," he told Fox News, referencing documents released by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Jan. 15, 2021.
Asher said the declassified information "indicated that workers at the Wuhan institute who appeared to be working on coronavirus research under Dr. Shi fell sick with what quite possibly was COVID-19."
He argued that key clues relating to the origin of the virus were neglected in the investigation and said it is an issue of "analysis paralysis" in the intelligence community.
BIDEN TO VISIT INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AS INVESTIGATION INTO COVID-19 ORIGIN CONTINUES
"The people who are analysts have found putting pieces together either too difficult, too painful, or too risky," Asher said.
The former State official pointed to patterns by the Chinese government over the last decade as "clues" that he thinks the intelligence community should have considered in its report.
In a 2011 declaration to the Biological Warfare Convention, China warned that the "rapid development of biological sciences and technologies may significantly increase the destructiveness of biological warfare."
Asher believes these previous warnings could highlight the types of capabilities China was pursuing.
The former State official said two significant aspects of "solid intelligence" that were not examined by the intelligence community are the "lack of specific evidence of zoonotic origin" and an "incredible lack of information that the Chinese were seriously looking for the origin themselves."
The investigation carried out by four intelligence agencies under the ODNI found that the coronavirus "was not developed as a biological weapon."
Asher questioned this finding and said, "What makes it a weapon is if you use it in a way that was offensive, or you cover up its impact."
"Having a contagion spread around the world that they knew was going to create a pandemic and they didnt stop it means they were deliberate in fostering a pandemic," he added.
The intelligence report further found that the virus "probably was not genetically engineered."
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But Asher argued that the coronavirus having had so few mutations is itself a "hallmark of bioengineering."
"Idont know that we've ever seen a freshly emerged virus spread asymptomatically in the wild like this," Asher told Fox News. "The reason the DNI cannot get to the bottom of the COVID origins is because they dont use clues or think deductively."
Lets start with a bit of epidemiology. On July 12th, the United States reported 35,383 new cases of COVID-19, according to the Times. A month later, as the Delta variant continued to spread in many parts of the country, the U.S. reported 138,709 new cases. From an economic perspective, these dates are significant, because the Labor Department carries out its monthly survey of employer hiring during the pay period that includes the twelfth of the month. Between the July and the August survey periods, COVID cases shot up nearly fourfold.
On Wall Street, however, most economists took the view that the big resurgence in case numbers wouldnt have a huge effect on hiring, which had been growing strongly since May as vaccinations became freely available and many COVID restrictions were removed. This time last month, the Labor Department reported that the economy had created nine hundred and forty-three thousand jobs in July. Earlier this week, the consensus estimate for the August figure, which was due to be released on Friday morning, was seven hundred and twenty thousand, according to Dow Jones. The actual number came in at two hundred and thirty-five thousandless than a third of the consensus prediction. Even allowing for sampling error and other factors that make the month-to-month figures bounce around, this was a big forecasting error, and it seems evident that the Delta variant was to blame for it.
From February to July, total employment in the COVID-sensitive leisure-and-hospitality industry increased by about three hundred and fifty thousand per month. In August, this hiring stopped dead: the industry added zero jobs on net. Although businesses associated with the arts, entertainment (gambling), and recreation added thirty-six thousand jobs, this gain was more than offset by a loss of forty-two thousand jobs in restaurants and bars. The most convincing explanation is that, as the number of COVID cases rose sharply, some people stopped going out, and owners of restaurants and bars reassessed their staffing needs. Such a theory is consistent with OpenTable data for restaurant reservations, which show a significant dip since July. Something similar appears to have happened in the retail industry, where the most recent spending figuresfor Julyalso came in weaker than expected. The jobs report showed that retailers shed twenty-nine thousand jobs last month, with most of the drop concentrated in food and beverage stores.
The upshot of all this is depressingly clear. Despite hopes earlier this year that mass vaccination would finally break the link between the pandemic and the economy, this hasnt happenednot yet, at least. According to the Labor Departments monthly survey of households, which is part of the employment report, the number of people saying that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business rose from 5.2 million in July to 5.6 million in August. Yet another sure sign that the Delta variant is biting: the rate of participation in the labor force among women aged twenty and over, which fell sharply in the early months of the pandemic before rebounding somewhat, slipped again last month.
The good news? There isnt any, Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a circular to his clients this weekend. September likely will be weak too, and were becoming nervous about the prospects for a decent revival in October, given that behavior lags cases, and cases are yet to peak. This pessimism could turn out to be justified, but it isnt universal. The August employment report was very reminiscent of April payrolls, when employment slowed sharply, only to rebound within the next two months, Aneta Markowska and Thomas Simons, two economists at the investment bank Jefferies, wrote in another analysis out on Friday. If anything, this one will likely be followed by an even quicker/sharper rebound given the likely influx of labor supply in September.
Two things we can say for sure are that the average monthly payroll figure for the three-month period from June to August is a robust seven hundred and fifty thousand, and last months gain of two hundred and thirty-five thousand was far from trivial; in normal times, it would be considered a healthy figure. Outside the most virus-sensitive sectors, many employers are still hiring. Despite supply-chain problems, the car industry added twenty-four thousand jobs in August; engineering and architectural firms added nineteen thousand; information businesses added seventeen thousand; the financial sector added sixteen thousand. Indeed, the official jobless rate dipped to 5.2 per cent last month, its lowest level since March of last year. These are all reassuring signs that the bottom hasnt fallen out of the economy, and the gradual recovery from the initial shock of the pandemic is continuing. Indeed, the United States is one of the few countries whose G.D.P. has already rebounded to its pre-pandemic level.
Looking ahead, a key question is how economic policymakers will react to the slowdown in the labor market. In a speech last week, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, indicated that the central bank is preparing to rein in some of the monetary stimulus it has been providing since the start of the pandemic. Given the weaker jobs figures for August, Powell and his colleagues will surely wait to see the September report, which will be released early next month, before making a final decision.
On the fiscal side, the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill are now facing renewed pressure to extend the expansion of unemployment benefits, scheduled to lapse this month. The Washington Posts Jeff Stein reported on Friday that the Biden Administration is split on the issue, with some economic aides concerned that the cutoff of additional benefits poses a serious danger to millions of Americans who remain out of work, but the President is supportive of allowing the extra benefits to lapse.
The disappointing jobs report is also sure to figure in the increasingly bitter debate among congressional Democrats about two big spending bills: a bipartisan one, devoted to infrastructure, and a larger Democratic bill designed to bolster the social safety net and promote green energy, which Party leaders hope to pass through the budget-reconciliation process. Earlier this week, Senator Joe Manchin outraged many Democrats when he advocated a strategic pause on the reconciliation bill. Shortly after the jobs report was released, Biden called on Congress to finish the job of passing my economic agenda so that we can keep up the historic momentum weve been building these last seven months.
It will be some weeks before we know the outcome of the spending battles and the Feds deliberations. But the slowdown in job growth is a stark reminder of something that Powell made clear a couple of weeks ago in remarks that now seem prescient: The COVID pandemic is still casting a shadow on economic activity. It is still very much with us. We cant, you know, we cant declare victory yet on that.
