A few days ago Calmatters reported that "COVID Cases Surging in California a month after Reopening." The report noted that "A month after California’s reopening lifted most pandemic restrictions, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising, worrying public health officials as they contend with the more infectious Delta variant and the lagging pace of vaccinations in some communities. Los Angeles County has drawn particular concern, with five straight days of more than 1,000 new cases, a five-fold increase from mid-June."

In that light, a new report by Bloomberg claims that Apple is pushing back its return to office deadline by at least a month to October at the earliest, responding to a resurgence of Covid variants across many countries.

Apple becomes one of the first U.S. tech giants to delay plans for a return to normality as Covid-19 persists around the world and cases involving a highly transmissible variant increase. Apple will give its employees at least a month’s warning before mandating a return to offices.

Yet even with half the U.S. vaccinated, Covid-19 continues to kill people faster than guns, car crashes and influenza combined, according to a Bloomberg review of mortality data. After 10 weeks of global declines in Covid deaths, the highly transmissible delta variant is driving a new uptick. In the U.S., health officials have warned that a similar reversal may be underway: Daily cases have doubled from a low point last month, and hospitalizations are rising again.

Separately, Apple is said to be testing a hybrid in-store and work-from-home arrangement for retail employees, acknowledging that consumers may continue to prefer online shopping even as the pandemic eases. For more, read the full Bloomberg report on Yahoo! Finance.