Good morning, SoCal. Here's what you need to know today.
Your Weather Planner
Marine layer clouds have pushed farther inland overnight so that'll delay the heat today. Good news if you live inland because that, along with an onshore flow, will contribute to a "cooling trend."
High temperatures inland will be near or right at average. An isolated thunderstorm is possible, mainly over the deserts in the Inland Empire deserts and San Diego County.
Get your 7-day forecast: LA West | LA East | San Fernando Valley/Ventura County | Orange County
Around SoCal
1. COVID cases continue rise in LA County
With local COVID-19 infection numbers surging upward, topping 1,000 new cases for the fifth straight day, Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday lamented continued resistance to vaccines while health officials announced an outreach effort to bring shots to people's doors.
The county reported 1,103 new COVID cases on Tuesday, lifting the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 1,259,772. The county also reported 12 new fatalities due to the virus, increasing the death toll to 24,554.
The rolling seven-day average rate of people testing positive for the virus was 2.9% as of Tuesday, up from 2.8% on Monday and well above the 0.3% rate from mid-June.
State figures, meanwhile, showed that hospitalizations due to COVID in Los Angeles County were pushing the 400 mark, reaching 398. That was up from 376 on Monday. There were 94 people in intensive care, up from 85 a day earlier.
The county's medical services director, Dr. Christina Ghaly, told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that none of the county-operated hospitals have admitted a single COVID-19 patient who was fully vaccinated.
"Every single patient that we've admitted for COVID has been not yet fully vaccinated, and that's hard for the health-care workers to see," Ghaly said. "They've spent hours, effort, energy trying to care for patients, and at this point this really is a preventable illness, a preventable infection."
2. OC sees jump in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations
If the state still had its blueprint for reopening the economy system in place, Orange County would have had to move up from the least restrictive yellow tier to the orange tier, the chief health officer and director of the county's Health Care Agency told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
According to state data released every Tuesday, the county's average daily new case rate per 100,000 residents jumped up from 1.5 last week to 2.6, while the overall test positivity rate ticked up from 1.2% to 1.8%.
The county's Health Equity Quartile rate, which measures positivity in hot spots in disadvantaged communities, climbed from 1.4% to 1.9%.
The county was averaging 70 to 80 hospitalizations prior to the Fourth of July, Dr. Clayton Chau said. Now the county has 119 hospitalized, with 25 in intensive care, he added.
"The majority — over 95% — are individuals who are unvaccinated," Chau said.
He said that although Orange County has "one of the highest rates in the country" of inoculated seniors, "we still have about 11% of seniors not vaccinated."
3. Sho-case: Shohei Ohtani gets All-Star win for AL, bats, too
Ohtani unleashed his 100 mph heat while pitching a perfect inning for the win in becoming baseball’s first two-way All-Star, Guerrero rocked Coors Field with a 468-foot home run and the American League breezed 5-2 Tuesday night for its eighth straight victory.
Near and far, the sport’s entire focus was on Ohtani from the very start.
Players on both sides climbed to the dugout rails to watch him, and the Japanese sensation went 0 for 2, grounding out twice as the AL’s leadoff man and designated hitter.
A 27-year-old right-hander in his fourth big league season, Ohtani has dazzled. He leads the major leagues with 33 homers and is 4-1 in 13 starts as a pitcher, a two-way performance not seen since Babe Ruth in 1919 and ’20, before the Bambino largely gave up the mound for slugging.
“This has been the best experience, most memorable,” he said through translator Ippei Mizuhara. “Obviously, I’ve never played in the playoffs or World Series, so once I do that, that’s probably going to surpass it. But this has been the most memorable.”
Ohtani was a double triple-digit threat in Denver, hitting a 513-foot drive during Monday night’s Home Run Derby and throwing a 100.2 mph pitch to Nolan Arenado Tuesday night.
Around the Nation
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Don't Miss This
Only on Spectrum News 1
Sushi with no fish! LA food truck serves vegan sushi that looks and tastes like the real deal
The Plant Lab, a Los Angeles food truck that specializes in vegan sushi, provided us with an inside look at the process.
The “salmon” is made from tapioca starch and water, among other ingredients. Chef Piyamit Buppachat actually doesn’t even eat fish.
“I don’t like fish. I don’t eat it,” he said.
The founders of The Plant Lab food truck, Chalita Ramasoot and Phanicha Sriworakul, wanted vegans and people who just don’t like fish to experience the joy of sushi beyond just an avocado or cucumber roll. Ramasoot actually owns a vegan Thai restaurant, and her customers always asked for this.
“We were thinking sushi can be more than just fish," Ramasoot said. "When it’s vegan you are creating a new thing."
SoCal Snapshot
Nicolas Cage poses with a fan at the Los Angeles premiere of "Pig" on Tuesday at the Nuart Theatre. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)