LOCAL
In what could turn out to be arrival of the Christmas COVID Spike, the daily new infections in Pico Rivera and the City of Whittier spiked on Monday, December 28th as local residents who had traveled out of states began returning and largely ignoring the state's COVID 19 restrictions. However, since the rest of the Whittier Area is actually showing big declines in daily infections, we will need another week of data to determine whether or not this really is the Christmas Spike that we are seeing in these two particular communities. Their numbers for Monday were 158 for Pico Rivera and 160 for City of Whittier. By comparison, South Whittier which until recently had the third highest number of daily infections had only 64 showing a significant decline in new cases there. We are going to need much more data to determine why it went up so high in City of Whittier and City of Pico Rivera when it dropped every else in the Whittier Area, however people returning from out of state may be a factor and more people will be returning after New Years. Another factor is that people continue to wear masks incorrectly, they are not covering their noses which is where the virus spreads from. Scientists at the beginning of the pandemic found that the SARS COV 2 virus literally nests up in the lining cells of the nose and are spread mostly from one nose to another. Many who don't wear masks claim that the virus is either fake or spreads only from mouth to mouth both of which have been completely debunked by science. Until we get more information on this week's data there is not much that can really be gleaned as we will need to wait until Saturday to have enough data to know for sure whether this is the start of the Christmas Spike in the Whittier Area.
The death count for the Whittier Area was 6.
POLITICS
The state currently has travel restrictions in place but both the state and county have largely been powerless to enforce those restrictions and are struggling to plead with returning residents to follow quarantine protocols. The county is requiring a quarantine of 10 days even though a person might not show symptoms until up to 14 days later which means people could start to experience COVID symptoms up to 4 days after the county's quarantine period has expired for them even if they were to follow the guidance for travelers. It could be that the county and state both recognize they are not going to get people to voluntarily quarantine for that long as they are having enough difficulty getting people to quarantine for the current recommendation of 10 days.
WHAT THE DATA SHOWS
The top 5 daily new infections for Monday, December 28:
City of Whittier 160
Pico Rivera 158
South Whittier 64
La Habra 63
Hacienda Heights 60
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