Firefighters are battling to maintain the upper hand on a huge and rapidly moving wildfire that swept through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles area is seeing more cases of people with dengue fever without traveling outside the United States, a year after the first such case was reported in California.

Los Angeles County has dropped a plan to impose a universal indoor mask mandate this week as COVID-19 infections and rates of hospitalizations have stabilized.

New omicron variants are again driving hospital admissions and deaths higher in recent weeks, causing states and cities to rethink their responses to COVID-19 and the White House to step up efforts to alert the public.

The difficulty finding coronavirus test kits in many parts of California and delays in getting results are causing increasing frustration and helping drive the surge of infections.

The Los Angeles board of education has voted to require students 12 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend in-person classes in the nation’s second-largest school district.

California’s top health official says the state no longer will require social distancing and will allow full capacity for businesses when the state reopens on June 15.

Last week, state health officials told The Associated Press they were keeping all the data secret because it is complicated and might mislead the public. Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases control expert at University of California, San Francisco, was among the critics. Gavin Newsom announced a new stay-at-home order that was based on ICU capacity in each of five regions. At a news conference with Newsom, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly promised to reveal some of the information behind the projections. But it’s currently stuck at 9.9% — virtually the same level it was two weeks ago when state officials abruptly lifted the stay-at-home order there.

About 330,000 doses from the lot had been distributed to nearly 300 providers in California this month. “Under a Biden administration, our country has a fighting chance at defeating this virus,” California state Sen. Scott Wiener said Wednesday. More than 4 million doses had been shipped and about 1.5 million had been administered as of Tuesday, according to figures from the state public health department. “The chief obstacle we are facing is not enough doses,” said Roland Pickens, director of San Francisco’s public health care system, at a supervisors’ hearing Wednesday. The total of 694 new deaths is second to the record 708 reported Jan. 8, according to the state Department of Public Health.

People wait in cars for a vaccination against the coronavirus at a new "vaccination superstation," Monday, Jan. 11, 2021, in San Diego. The site, which opened Monday, began providing large-scale COVID-19 vaccinations to health care workers. California has deployed 88 refrigerated trailers to use as makeshift morgues mostly in hard-hit Southern California, where traditional storage space is dwindling. “People are eager to come out and grateful for this opportunity,” she said, with more than 12,500 health care workers in San Diego County initially scheduling an appointment. ___Watson reported from San Diego.

For months, California did many of the right things to avoid a catastrophic surge from the pandemic. In California, the southern half of the state has seen the worst effects, from the agricultural San Joaquin Valley to the Mexico border. On Thursday, the total number of California deaths surpassed 25,000, joining only New York and Texas at that milestone. And public health directives were never adequately enforced. Public health officials, he said, need to find a way to reach people who have given up or not followed rules on social distancing and masks.

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)LAS VEGAS — Tens of thousands of people were walking on the casino-lined Las Vegas Strip on New Year’s Eve by early evening despite a plea from Nevada Gov. China on Friday reported a total of 19 new virus cases, including 10 that were brought from outside the country. ___LONDON — The coronavirus pandemic canceled London’s annual New Years’ Eve fireworks display, which usually draws tens of thousands of spectators. The nation’s most populated county has about 40% of California’s virus deaths. ___NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee ends the year ranked first in coronavirus cases per capita.

The others are the lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, insurance commissioner and Kansas Supreme Court chief justice and four Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature. The legislative leaders and the state’s Republican attorney general passed, for now, because not all health care workers and nursing home residents have received theirs. The governor also said Wednesday that “hundreds” of other, non-elected state officials have been made eligible for early vaccines by their agencies. The others are the lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, insurance commissioner and Kansas Supreme Court chief justice and four Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature. Most of those Republicans said they didn’t want to jump in line ahead of health care workers, nursing home residents or other vulnerable Kansans.

(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool, File)SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Los Angeles County surpassed 10,000 deaths from the coronavirus Wednesday as California also hit a record high number of fatalities. The governor also announced the first detected case of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus in a San Diego man. LA County Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer called the 10,056 deaths there a “terrible milestone." San Diego County officials said the infected man is a 30-year-old with no history of travel. Hours after the new variant was detected, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order directing stricter enforcement of state and local public health rules.

This October 2020 photo provided by Pfizer shows freezers set up in a warehouse in Kalamzoo, Mich., in preparation for distribution of the company's coronavirus vaccine. ___THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:The White House is pressuring the FDA chief Stephen Hahn to grant an emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine by the end of the day. Andrew Cuomo has reinstated indoor dining restrictions indefinitely in New York City in an effort to limit the increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Michigan’s health department argues the teaching restriction is necessary to control the spread of the coronavirus, especially after Thanksgiving gatherings. State Health Department officials on Friday confirmed 513 new cases of the coronavirus.

“Our metrics are the most alarming metrics that we’ve ever seen,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. Public health officials are bracing for a wave of cases that could follow gatherings at Thanksgiving, particularly as people arrive or return from states or areas with higher infection rates. Ferrer noted that Los Angeles International Airport reported 1 million travelers on Monday. The California Restaurant Association had argued that Los Angeles County health officials should have to provide medical or scientific evidence that outdoor restaurant dining poses an unreasonable risk to public health. ___Associated Press writers Michael R. Blood and John Antczak in Los Angeles and Daisy Nguyen in Oakland contributed to this report.

FILE - In this March, 12, 2020, file photo, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer takes questions at a news conference in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County imposed new restrictions on businesses Tuesday and is readying plans for a mandatory curfew for all but essential workers if coronavirus cases keep spiking. If the five-day average of cases tops 4,000 or hospitalizations are above 1,750 per day, outdoor restaurant dining will be banned. If cases reach 4,500 per day or hospitalizations top 2,000, the county will impose a three-week lockdown that will restrict people to their homes for all but essential services. Those counties joined Los Angeles and 13 others already at that level, and together they account for 94% of the state’s nearly 40 million residents.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Near the end of September, with coronavirus cases falling and more schools and businesses reopening, Gov. Collectively, people 18 to 49 now account for 58% of all new coronavirus cases in the county. But Newsom still has not allowed for large public gatherings or theme parks to reopen, even with modifications. The unions, representing about 10,000 Disneyland workers, told Newsom in June it was unsafe to open theme parks. Newsom said he plans to announce guidelines for theme parks on Tuesday, hinting he might have different rules for different types of theme parks.

Workers direct cars as they wait in line for coronavirus testing at Dodger Stadium Tuesday, July 14, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)LOS ANGELES Coronavirus cases have surged to record levels in the Los Angeles area, putting the nations largest county in an alarming and dangerous phase that if not reversed could overwhelm intensive care units and usher in more sweeping closures, health officials said Wednesday. Gavin Newsom shut bars and indoor dining statewide, and ordered closures of hair salons, gyms, malls and other indoor businesses in Los Angeles and other counties experiencing the most significant surge of virus cases. In Los Angeles County, where 10 million people live, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said further restrictions are on the table if trend lines continue to show that hospitals could become overwhelmed. Los Angeles County, home to a quarter of the states population, reported 2,758 more confirmed cases on Wednesday and 44 deaths.

The number of homeless deaths increased from 536 in 2013 to 1,047 in 2018, the report said. The overall death rate increased by over a third during that time, when taking the increase in the homeless population into account. Drug and alcohol overdoses were the largest contributing factor to death rate increase, the report said. The report recommended several actions, including establishing a team to review homeless deaths to better understand the circumstances. The county's homeless population had increased to almost 60,000 this year despite major investment to combat the crisis, according to a report released earlier this year by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.