The Brief

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is reporting an extremely rare situation.

A Baldwin Park resident has been diagnosed with dengue after catching it locally, the department announced on Monday. Dengue is a disease caused by a virus that spreads mainly through mosquito bites.

While a very low amount of L.A. County residents catch dengue through travel yearly, this is the first time the L.A. County Department of Public Health has reported a locally-acquired case.

That means there are likely infected mosquitoes in the county.

What is dengue?

Dengue is common in tropical and subtropical regions, like the Caribbean, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific islands.

This is California’s third locally-acquired dengue case. Two others were reported in Long Beach and Pasadena in fall 2023. Those cities have their own public health departments.

Locally-acquired means the person had no history of travel to areas where the disease is endemic.

The risk of it spreading in L.A. County remains low, but the announcement comes at a time when dengue cases have been rising globally. The 2024 calendar year has had the highest number of cases on record, according to a recent health advisory.

More than 11 million cases of dengue have been reported in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean in 2024, according to the CDC.

Dengue is primarily passed on to people through the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes, which are invasive to California.

Dengue can cause a range of flu-like symptoms. Those include fevers, headaches, pain behind the eyes, joint and muscle pain, rash, and even mild bleeding. About 1 in 20 cases develop serious disease symptoms, which could be life-threatening. But for most, symptoms usually last from a few days to a week.

What’s being done

The county Department of Public Health is working with vector control districts on prevention. The department said field teams are going door-to-door with information on dengue risk and mosquito bites nearby.

“This case further indicates that dengue fever is present in our community... ,” said Muntu Davis, L.A. County health officer, in a statement. “We must remain vigilant and prevent further cases through public education and mosquito control efforts.”

San Gabriel Valley’s vector control district is also increasing mosquito trapping to allow for more testing and to reduce the risk of additional spread in the Baldwin Park neighborhood.

How you can protect yourself

Because dengue is spread through mosquitoes, avoiding bites is the best way to protect yourself.

Aedes mosquitoes prefer to breed in small spaces, like containers and even bottle caps. And they are known as ankle biters that can be active during the day and in well-lit areas at night.

• Clear water and gaps

You’ll want to make sure to clear standing water around your home. A lot of the water sources that mosquitoes thrive off of are generated by us — think a dripping spigot, or water left outside for your pets. Clogged rain gutters, drying out buckets, and even fresh water in bird baths can become a breeding ground.

Give your home a check for gaps that mosquitoes can get through, like a broken window screen. The Greater L.A. County Vector Control District has a checklist that you can use to check your property.

• Use insect repellent

You’ll want to look for ones with specific active ingredients such as DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus, IR3535, and 2-undecanone.

• Call in the experts

If the mosquitoes where you live won’t take the hint, call your local vector control district. They can catalog, remove, and document the spread — at no cost.

May gray has come and gone, and now it's time for June gloom.

Overcast skies will be present this morning, especially along the beaches and valleys closest to the coast. Otherwise, we're in for a partly cloudy afternoon.

Today's temperatures at L.A. County beaches will stay around 66 to 71 degrees, and reach 76 to 80 degrees for places more inland.

In Orange County, expect similar temperatures with highs from 67 to 74 degrees for Huntington Beach and surrounding areas. More inland areas like Anaheim and Garden Grove will see temperatures of up to 79 degrees.

Moving on to L.A. County valleys, expect high temperatures in the low to mid 80s.

In the Inland Empire, temperatures will range 80 to 89 degrees.

Election Day is here, but now comes the waiting.

Do you have something to watch on Netflix? Maybe you've been meaning to pick up a hobby — how about crochet? Whatever you do, take a deep breath and keep busy because it could be days (or weeks) before we get some California election results.

The state is often knocked by the rest of the country as being "slow" to count votes. But here's the deal: that's a feature, not a bug, of the election system.

The backstory

Things take a while here largely because California works so hard to expand the ways people can vote. For example:

• Californians in recent years overwhelmingly vote by mail — nearly 90% of votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were mail-in ballots. In that same year's primary the percentage was just as high. Those ballots can be postmarked up to and including Election Day. They're counted as long as the ballot arrives within seven days (for the June primary, that's June 9).
• California offers same-day voter registration at any voting center. These new voters must cast a provisional ballot, which is counted once election officials confirm their eligibility (they are overwhelmingly accepted — for example, Los Angeles County reports that historically between 85% to 90% have been counted.
• Voters also have the right to cast provisional ballots if there's any problem on election day — like if poll workers aren't able to void an outstanding mail-in ballot, or if there’s any issue calling up voter information from e-pollbooks. Again (see above), provisionals take longer to process because eligibility has to be confirmed.
• Vote-by-mail ballots require signature matching. When the one received doesn't match the one on file, county registrars must contact that voter to let them know — and give them the chance to correct it.
• And, with more than 23 million registered voters, we're really, really big. In the 2024 general election more than 16 million Californians voted (down from nearly 18 million in the 2020 presidential election). Either way, that’s more people than the total populations of all but three other states.

Why things have sped up, some

But things have sped up considerably in the 30 counties that have adopted a 2016 law called the Voter's Choice Act, including L.A., Orange and Riverside counties. In recent elections, the changes associated with that law — like voters not being locked into a designated polling location — drastically cut down the number of provisional ballots cast, which helped move things along faster than they had before.

A closer look at ballot counting times in California where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.

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Courtesy California Voter Foundation

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Still, accuracy and a commitment to "expanding the franchise" — translation: allowing more people to vote — means the process is not designed to produce instantaneous results.

Why you should take a deep breath Election Night

You'll have to get that endorphin hit elsewhere on June 2.

A few things to keep in mind: You may recall that during the 2024 primary, it took about a week to call the results for L.A. City Council races in District 4, where incumbent Nithya Raman was fighting to avoid a runoff election, and District 14, where challenger Ysabel Jurado wound up overtaking incumbent Kevin de León by just a few hundred votes.

It took an even longer 15 days to call the results of Prop. 1, during which opponents conceded, walked back that concession, and conceded again when the measure won by a razor-thin 0.4% margin. And it took 23 days to call the second-place winner for Orange County's 45th congressional district — it ultimately went to Democrat Derek Tran who went on to beat Republican Michelle Steel in the general election. Tran is now up for reelection and rematch with Steel is considered likely in November.

Depending on how close some of these races end up being, we may face similar waits this election cycle.

TL;DR: Officially, county and state election officials have until July 10 to certify election results — including a mandatory audit that requires hand-counting all of the ballots at 1% of precincts. Nevertheless, you're going to see a lot of national media headlines about California's relative "slowness." Brush it off. We have sunshine, beaches, and a highly enfranchised population.