The Los Angeles Times reports that the Delta coronavirus variant is now the third-most common in California, new data show, underscoring the danger of the highly contagious strain to people who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19.

The variant makes up 14.5% of California coronavirus cases analyzed so far in June, up from 4.7% in May, when it was the fourth-most identified variant in California, according to data released by the California Department of Public Health.

Experts say the Delta variant poses a greater chance of infection for unvaccinated people if they are exposed. The variant, first identified in India, may be twice as transmissible as the conventional coronavirus strains. It has been responsible for the rise in cases recently in India, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

But vaccinated people are well protected against infection and illness from the Delta variant. One recent study found that the full two-dose course of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease caused by the Delta variant and 96% protective against hospitalization.

Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, has confirmed 123 Delta variant cases – 49 of them among residents of Palmdale and Lancaster. Fourteen cases of the Delta variant were in people from a single household.

L.A. County data suggest that vaccines are still overwhelmingly effective in protecting people against the Delta variant, as well as other known variants. Of those 123 confirmed cases of the Delta variant in the county, 89% occurred among people who were not vaccinated against COVID-19, and 2% among those who were partially vaccinated. No one has died from the Delta variant in L.A. County.

The few fully vaccinated people who have been infected with the Delta variant “experienced relatively mild illness,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

Almost everyone who has died in L.A. County of COVID-19 has been unvaccinated. Data released by the county showed that 99.8% of COVID-19 deaths from Dec. 7 to June 7 occurred among unvaccinated people.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you have a lot of protection,” Ferrer said, adding that for the “very small numbers” of people who contracted the Delta variant despite vaccination, “they really did not have serious illness. …This is a pandemic of unvaccinated people.”

The results of outbreaks of the Delta variant elsewhere also support the vaccines’ effectiveness.

Meanwhile, data released by California show that the percentage of the tested population who have antibodies to the coronavirus – a sign of immunity to COVID-19 – is also increasing.

Experts have estimated that 70% to 85% of a population needs to have immunity for a region to develop “herd immunity” to COVID-19, which interrupts the sustained transmission of the virus.

The Delta variant is also spreading nationwide.  From May 9 to May 22, the Delta variant made up less than 3% of analyzed coronavirus samples nationwide. But from June 6 to June 19, that proportion rose to more than 20%.

Researchers have conducted a study showing that the B.1.1.7 lineage of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged in the UK is now rapidly being displaced as the dominant strain in the United States by the variants of concern B.1.617.2 (Delta) and P.1 (Gamma) that emerged in India and Brazil, respectively.

A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the medRxiv* server, while the article undergoes peer review.

Since B.1.617.2 has displaced B.1.1.7 as the dominant variant in England and other countries, Alexandre Bolze and colleagues from Helix in San Mateo, California, set out to determine whether it is also displacing B.1.1.7 in the United States.

The B.1.617.2 variant was first identified in the United States on March 16th, 2021.

To examine the impact that the B.1.617.2 and P.1 variants of concern have had on the prevalence of B.1.1.7 in the United States, the researchers analyzed PCR and sequencing results of samples collected by the Helix laboratory across the country since April 2021.

The team’s analysis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and viral sequencing results collected from across the United States showed that B.1.1.7 is no longer responsible for the majority of new cases in the country.

The percentage of SARS-CoV-2-positive cases that were of the B.1.1.7 lineage dropped from 70% in April 2021 to 42% over a period of just 6 weeks.

Next, the researchers compared the Helix sequencing data by county with the county vaccination rates reported by the CDC.

The study showed that B.1.617.2 had a higher growth rate than P.1 and was growing faster in counties with a lower vaccination rate.

This revealed that the prevalence of B.1.617.2, which is more transmissible but less resistant to vaccination, is higher in counties with lower vaccination rates. By contrast, P.1, which is less transmissible but more resistant to vaccination, is more prevalent in counties with higher vaccination rates.

Moreover, while a study by Public Health England showed that full immunization (two doses) with the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains more than 90% effective at protecting against hospitalization following infection with B.1.617.2, the efficacy following one dose is lower, compared with B.1.1.7 infection, says Bolze and colleagues.

The researchers say they expect that B.1.617.2 will soon become the dominant variant in the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court said California was violating the Constitution with a decades-old regulation that gives union organizers access to agricultural company land for part of the year to talk to workers.

Voting 6-3 along ideological lines, the justices said the 1975 provision, which grew out of the efforts of Cesar Chavez to give farm workers collective bargaining rights, infringed the rights of landowners.

The California regulation grants labor organizations a “right to take access” to an agricultural employer’s property in order to solicit support for unionization. Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, §20900(e)(1)(C). The regulation mandates that agricultural employers allow union organizers onto their property for up to three hours per day, 120 days per year.

Organizers from the United Farm Workers sought to take access to property owned by two California growers “Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company.

The growers filed suit in Federal District Court seeking to enjoin enforcement of the access regulation on the grounds that it appropriated without compensation an easement for union organizers to enter their property and therefore constituted an unconstitutional per se physical taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The District Court denied the growers’ motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissed the complaint, holding that the access regulation did not constitute a per se physical taking because it did not allow the public to access the growers’ property in a permanent and continuous manner.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, and rehearing en banc was denied over dissent.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and ruled in favor of the landowners in the case of Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid.

The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: “[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

When the government physically acquires private property for a public use, the Takings Clause obligates the government to provide the owner with just compensation.

California’s access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers’ property and therefore constitutes a per se physical taking. Rather than restraining the growers’ use of their own property, the regulation appropriates for the enjoyment of third parties (here union organizers) the owners’ right to exclude. The right to exclude is “a fundamental element of the property right.”

Robert Joseph Maher, 42, formerly of Stockton, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to six years and three months in prison for mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.

According to court documents, between November 2010 and February 2018, Maher participated in a scheme to defraud the State of California Employment Development Department (EDD) by filing fraudulent claims for unemployment insurance benefits.

In furtherance of this scheme, Maher and his co-defendant, Michael Herron II, also of Stockton, created fictitious companies and fictitious employees by using the real identities of persons with and without their knowledge. They then filed claims with EDD, falsely stating that the employees had been laid-off or fired. The unemployment benefits were deposited onto debit cards that were mailed to addresses controlled by Maher, Herron, or their associates.

In one instance, Maher and Herron electronically filed an unemployment insurance claim in the name of an identity-theft victim. Maher knew that the victim was a real person because the claim listed the victim’s correct date of birth and social security number. The claim also listed Maher’s address in Stockton as the claimant’s address, which caused a bank to mail an EDD debit card in the victim’s name to Maher’s address.

Maher and Herron then transferred the card’s benefits to Maher’s personal bank account. Maher and Herron also used the victim’s name to register another fictitious business entity that was used in the fraud scheme.

In all, Maher and Herron filed at least 72 fraudulent claims for unemployment insurance benefits, seeking a total of $739,535, of which EDD paid out approximately $609,335. Judge Mendez ordered Maher to pay restitution to EDD in the amount of $609,335.

This case is the product of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor – Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the California Employment Development Department’s Investigation Division. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Artuz is prosecuting the case.

On March 26, 2019, Herron pleaded guilty to similar counts of mail fraud and aggravated identity theft and, on June 25, 2019, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison.

Employment lawyers say companies are watching closely how pandemic return-to-work rules play out nationally, as they look to bring workers back safely and to dispense with mask protocols. “It’s a hairball,” said Eric Hobbs, an employment attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Milwaukee. “It’s all very confusing.”

The report published by Reuters claims that in some states, return to work rules may require identifying those who got a COVID-19 shot with badges or bracelets, raising discrimination issues and complicating hiring in a tightening labor market as the pandemic eases.

The U.S. workplace safety regulator, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has not provided clear guidance on the issue. “We continue to let the employer make the determination how to properly do this for their workplace,” OSHA’s acting director, Jim Frederick, told Reuters.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said last month that inoculated people can go without face coverings indoors in most places, has not addressed the thorny issue of how to establish whether someone has been vaccinated.

“What companies are debating right now, and we are too, is: is it necessary to specify on someone’s badge or wear something around their neck that, yes, they are vaccinated and therefore if they don’t have a mask on there’s nothing to worry about?” said Peter Hunt, vice president of brand protection and security at Flex Ltd, a product design and manufacturing company.

However, employers in California’s Santa Clara County, including Christopher Ranch, are required as of June 1 to ascertain if their workers have been vaccinated and check in every 14 days on those who say they have not or who decline to answer.

America’s largest garlic farm needs 1,000 workers to harvest its annual crop, but faces an unexpected hurdle in this year’s recruitment drive: it now must document and track the COVID-19 vaccine status of these seasonal laborers. The timing of the order, in the middle of the busy harvest season, couldn’t be worse.

Ken Christopher, the farm’s executive vice president, said the company has to develop a system to check who has been vaccinated while observing privacy laws and monitoring workers’ adherence to safety protocols and testing. “If the government wants to mandate (a vaccine), that’s one thing,” Christopher said. “But then requiring us to police it, that feels very unconventional.”

Workers in the Silicon Valley county who aren’t vaccinated or refuse to reveal their status to their employer must remain masked and should follow other protocols, such as limiting long-distance work travel and submitting to regular COVID-19 testing.

Christopher said he is considering a mask-free shift for vaccinated workers and another shift for workers who haven’t gotten their shot to avoid discrimination and tension. But asking farm laborers about their vaccination status and entering their details in a database could hurt recruitment efforts, he said.

“It’s the additional information being offered to the government,” said Christopher. “The more layers added on top, the more uncomfortable they are in seeking jobs here.”

Several states, including California, Michigan and Oregon, have their own rules or guidance on documenting vaccination status for workers but they are generally less strict than in Santa Clara County.

In Montana, however, a recently enacted law discourages employers from asking about vaccination status because it could lead to discrimination claims, according to employment lawyers.