The snow returned to the San Gabriel Mountains and the sweet smell of roses once again floated down Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard.
And, for a couple of blue-sky hours — after nearly two years of ducking the delta variant and outrunning omicron — thousands of attendees and 6,500 participants of the 133rd Rose Parade thumbed their masked noses at the coronavirus.
All along the 5.5-mile parade route — which saw the lightest crowds in 25 years, according to Tournament of Roses float construction committee member Larry Sharfstein — attendees echoed a similar refrain. They were happy to be back in person at a cherished event. Some were admittedly apprehensive about being out while the latest mutation of the virus was surging. But, most attendees said they knew how to be safe and that, well, it was all worth the risk.
“You just have to be super aware of where you’re at,” Frank Valenzuela said from his early morning curbside seat on Colorado at Lake Avenue.
Valenzuela, his sister Veronica and her daughter know first-hand about the virus. The three, who all live together in Huntington Park, all had COVID-19 in December 2020. The matriarch of the family, Cristina Valenzuela took the brunt of it. She was hospitalized for five months. For some of that time, she was sedated and intubated, Frank said.
But even though there were long term-impacts on his family — Cristina still cannot walk on her own and has short-term memory loss — Frank said being outdoors, with anitbodies from having been sick and vaccinations and boosters, made him comfortable coming out on New Year’s Day.
“The scary part is that I know I’m safe around my family,” Frank said. “But if you sit next to a stranger, well, then that’s a different story.”
And for that reason, the Valenzuela family opted not the sit in the grandstands. But thousands of people did. And in the grandstands, mask wearing was required (but with plenty of people pulling down their face coverings to smile for selfies) and so was proof of vaccination or a negative test result.
Some of the parade’s attendees were emerging from quarantine after missing out on family Christmas festivities due to breakthrough coronavirus cases; some were simply renewing an annual tradition; others were realizing a lifelong dream of sitting along the parade route.
Amid the high spirits, the shadow of of COVID was still unmistakable.
Kaiser Permanente officials opted to remove 20 front-line medical heroes as float riders and “out-walkers” from its float scheduled for Saturday’s march down Colorado Boulevard. No other such changes in the lineup were announced, however, as of the parade’s launch Saturday morning.
As one in every five people in Los Angeles County tests positive for the highly transmittable omicron variant, according to county public health officials, the winter surge has deepened concern in recent days that hospital staffing could be overextended.
The number of coronavirus patients in Los Angeles County hospitals rose to 1,628 today — up from 1,424 on Friday, according to the latest state figures. Of those patients, 246 were in intensive care, up sharply from 218 the previous day.
Those numbers come one day after local health officials closed out 2021 by reporting a record daily number of coronavirus cases, with a whopping 27,091 new infections along with 12 additional deaths associated with the virus.
Friday’s daily positivity rate ticked up nearly a full point overnight to 22.4%, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Last month, the rate was less than 1%..
The rapid spread of the virus is being blamed on the omicron variant, which experts say is easily spread from person to person, though there is evidence that it is less severe than its predecessors. Health officials said omicron is believed to be responsible for 59% of all U.S. COVID infections, out-pacing the previous delta variant, which now accounts for 41%.
Rose Parade organizers, who met regularly with Pasadena Public Health officials in the days leading up to the event, said they abided by health orders and did extensive research. They also vowed to monitor public health developments right up until parade times.
Leading up to the day’s festivities, David Eads, executive director and CEO of the Tournament of Roses, said every conceivable health safety measure was taken, including a 92% vaccination rate for the 6,500 staffers and participants in the parade.
Organizers admitted they were taking a risk of the virus infecting even vaccinated people. But, said Eads, it was important for people to take action individually.
“We understand we’re in a COVID surge and that there could be a spread of COVID,” Eads said before the parade. “But, we’re asking people to take individual responsibility.”
If you were a high-risk person worried about contracting COVID-19, said Eads — echoing the message of Pasadena Public Health’s Ying-Ying Goh and LA County’s Directory of Public Health Barbara Ferrer — you should have stayed at home.
For Eads, the return of the parade was long overdue. And, with it came a refrain not recently heard when it comes to managing the public health crisis:
“You need to do what you can do to be part of the solution to bring us back to having these mega events,” Eads said as he expressed hope that attendees would do their part and cooperate with the masking rules in the grandstands.
As the grandstands along the corner of Colorado and Orange Grove turned red with Ohio State and University of Utah football fans, there were also travelers who were crossing off an item on a bucket list.
Donna Goodale, from the Denver area, and her family sat, masked up, in the grandstands. They were there only for the parade. And, said Goodale, she was not worried.
“I’m not afraid of it,” Goodale said of COVID-19. “Hey, if it’s my time to die, it’s my time. Only God knows.”
And, for Eads and company, who had planned for the Rose Parade for nearly a year, its return was a milestone.
When the Tournament of Roses started planning the 2022 parade in February or March of 2021, said Eads, they did so in partnership with USC Keck School of Medicine. The feasibility study, he said, examined a number of scenarios, including hosting the parade with the coronavirus still active, but with putting mitigation measures into place.
The vaccine, negative test and masking requirements were based on those scientific scenarios, Eads said.
“This is a huge monumental event for these students,” said Eads. “It’s once in a lifetime for these students and I’m assuming they are doing everything they can to stay safe.”
As it takes time for reporting of caseloads to catch up to an event, it’s far too early to tell what impact the Rose Parade would have on positivity numbers.
“We’re in a different place than we were in than we were in a year ago before we had the vaccine,” Eads said, adding you can’t compare this winter’s burst of new cases to last year’s surge.
But would the 2022 Rose Parade go down in history as a super spreader event?
“We know it’s not going to be 100%,” Eads said of whether the virus would spread during the parade. “Everybody has to make the decision to come to a large event or not.”
It was clear, however, that the virus had taken a toll on attendance.
Michael Hayes, a security guard who has stood by the same four stores along near DeLacey and Colorado since 2002, said a church group who usually sets up 60 chairs was missing this year. “It’s amazing the impact that COVID has had,” Hayes said.
Angel Diaz had his own solution. He brought his own tented bubbles, called “Under the Weather” pods to the parade. As he sat surrounded by plastic — meant to keep him warm — he said he and husband Guillermo Diaz were only little worried about being at a large event. But, he said, he was happy to be out.
“We’ve gotta bring the New Year in with a positive vibe,” Angel Diaz said.
Source: Orange County Register
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