CoronavirusCovid News: New York Mayor Considers Booster Mandate for City Workers

New York mayor says he is considering a booster mandate for city employees.

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Mayor Eric Adams leaving City Hall in New York on Saturday, his first day in office.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Mayor Eric Adams of New York said on Sunday, his second day in office, that city workers might be required to get Covid vaccine booster shots.

City employees are already required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, but with new cases setting daily records, Mr. Adams, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” said the city’s “next move and decision” would be to “examine the numbers” and decide if a booster mandate is needed for municipal workers, such as teachers and police officers.

“If we feel we have to get to the place of making that mandatory, we’re willing to do that, but we’re encouraging them to do that now,” Mr. Adams told the host, George Stephanopoulos.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has shown it can evade vaccines, though studies indicate Moderna and Pfizer boosters are likely to offer substantial protection from the variant. Its rapid spread across the country has led some experts to call for a redefinition of what it means to be fully vaccinated, and corporations, schools, governments and even sports leagues are weighing whether to require booster shots.

Covid patients in hospitals and I.C.U.s
Early data may be incomplete.
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
5,000
10,000 hospitalized
Hospitalized
In I.C.U.s
0
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.

Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York announced that nearly 600,000 public university students will soon be required to get vaccination booster shots.

Big school districts that plan to reopen Monday are also expanding testing.

With teachers and nearly one million students returning to New York City’s public schools, Mr. Adams said at an appearance in Harlem that he thought “testing should be mandatory” for city schools, but said that the decision belonged to the state.

“It’s so important, it would give us a lot of power to determine who’s exposed,” said Mr. Adams, who stopped short of calling for mandatory vaccinations for schoolchildren.

“A mandatory vaccination, I think we should scale up to that,” he said. “I don’t think we’re at that point now where it needs to be mandatory, but I would love to have mandatory testing right now.”

The city is launching a ramped-up testing program to allow students who test negative for the coronavirus and do not have symptoms to remain in school.

Instead of delaying the start of in-person school and pivoting to remote learning, the city will double the amount of random surveillance testing it conducts, in hopes of detecting more infections while mitigating disruptions.

U.S. defense secretary tests positive for coronavirus.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin said his symptoms were mild and that he would work from home for the next five days.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has tested positive for the coronavirus, he announced.

In a statement posted to his Twitter account Sunday evening, Mr. Austin said he had tested positive for the virus that morning, after experiencing symptoms while at home on leave.

“My symptoms are mild, and I am following my physician’s directions,” Mr. Austin said, adding that he planned to quarantine at home for the next five days while virtually attending key meetings and discussions “to the degree possible.”

“I will retain all authorities,” he said, adding that Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, would represent him as appropriate in other matters.

In sharing his diagnosis, the defense secretary stressed that his fully vaccinated status — including a booster received in early October — was to thank for his mild symptoms.

“I am grateful,” Mr. Austin said, adding that vaccines remained a requirement for the military. He added: “The vaccines work.”

President Biden and other White House staff have been informed of Mr. Austin’s diagnosis, and contact tracing was being conducted, he added, noting that his last meeting with the president had been more than a week prior, and that he had received a negative test result for the virus that morning.

“I have not been in the Pentagon since Thursday, where I met briefly & only with a few staff,” Mr. Austin said. “We were properly masked & socially distanced throughout.”

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Israel will offer a 4th Covid shot to people 60 and over.

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Israel Approves 4th Covid Vaccine Dose for People 60 and Over

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that Israel would offer a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine to medical workers and people age 60 and above, making it the first country to broadly roll out an additional booster.

Israel started preparing for Omicron early on. This bought us time, which we’re using to our advantage. Last week, Israel began vaccinating its most vulnerable citizens with the fourth dose of the Covid vaccine. Tonight, I can announce that Israel will also begin administering the fourth vaccine to all Israelis age 60 and above, as well as our wonderful medical workers, four months after they’ve received their last dose, following the approval of Israel’s Ministry of Health. Israel will once again be pioneering the global vaccination effort. Omicron is not Delta — it’s a different ball game altogether. We must keep our eye on the ball, act swiftly and decisively if we want to continue engaging and working with an open country as much as possible throughout this pandemic.

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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that Israel would offer a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine to medical workers and people age 60 and above, making it the first country to broadly roll out an additional booster.CreditCredit...Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Sunday that Israel would offer a fourth Covid vaccine shot to people age 60 and over, as well as to medical workers, making it the first country to plan for an additional booster so broadly as it braces for a surge of infections from the Omicron variant.

“The Omicron wave is here,” Mr. Bennett said in a televised news conference.

He said the decision to introduce a fourth dose of vaccine for vulnerable people who had their last shot at least four months ago would provide Israel with “a new layer of protection.”

The Ministry of Health said it had approved the move in light of rising morbidity and the risk to older people.

Israel is reporting about 5,000 new daily cases, its highest figure since September. Mr. Bennett said that the peak of the Omicron wave, expected in the coming weeks, could bring up to 50,000 new cases per day.

New reported cases by day
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
50,000
100,000 cases
7-day average
491
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

The prime minister’s office said the new boosters would start on Monday.

But health ministry officials did not immediately present new data to back the decision to go ahead with a little-tested fourth dose on such a wide scale.

In recent days, the ministry first approved a fourth dose for people with weakened immune systems and then for the residents and staff of nursing homes. But health officials said they wanted to review more data from abroad about Omicron and about the value of added boosters before approving a fourth dose for the older population in general.

Israeli experts said it was not immediately clear what the new decision was based on.

Some experts have warned that it may be premature, and some have voiced concerns that a fourth shot in less than a year could actually weaken immunity.

But a panel of medical experts advising the Israeli government has recommended giving a fourth shot to those 60 and older, pointing to waning immunity in that age group, which was the first to receive the third shot starting in August.

Israel was a leader in rolling out the first round of Covid vaccinations and later in giving booster shots, so its results have been closely watched by the rest of the world.

Maryland prepares for a ‘terrible point’ in the Covid crisis, the governor says.

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Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland in Annapolis in August.Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said Sunday that the next few weeks could be one of the worst periods of the coronavirus epidemic yet, and that the state was working against staffing shortages in “overflowing” hospitals.

“We believe that the next four to six weeks are really going to be a terrible point in this crisis, and it’s potentially going to be the worst part of the whole two-year fight,” Mr. Hogan said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

Despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the nation, hospitals were filled with unvaccinated patients, he said.

“We’re going to take and continue to take every action we possibly can to help our hospitals, our nursing homes and to keep people safe,” he said.

One of the challenges for the weeks ahead will be maintaining staffing in medical facilities. Many doctors and nurses have been coming down with Covid, he said, and were also exhausted.

“You can’t really manufacture doctors and nurses that don’t exist, and frankly, these heroes on the front line that have been working so hard for two years, there’s fatigue,” Mr. Hogan said. To mitigate the crisis, the state put emergency funding into hospitals and nursing homes and sped up the graduations of nursing students, amid other measures.

Covid patients in hospitals and I.C.U.s
Early data may be incomplete.
Apr. 2020
Oct.
Apr. 2021
Oct.
Apr. 2022
Oct.
1,000
2,000
3,000 hospitalized
Hospitalized
In I.C.U.s
0
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.

Maryland’s hospitals, like those in many other states, are reaching capacity. The state reported a rolling average of more than 8,800 new cases a day on Jan. 1, an increase of more than 560 percent over the last two weeks, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations are up by more than 60 percent to an average of nearly 2,400.

It’s unclear how many hospitalizations are patients infected with Omicron versus the Delta variant, which is thought to be significantly more virulent. According to the C.D.C., about 58 percent of cases in Maryland and nearby states are currently Omicron.

The Maryland Hospital Association said that the number of hospital patients surpassed the state’s Covid peak from last winter.

The chief medical officer at the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis told MSNBC that the state was “at a tipping point,” and that there were no beds left open.

Mr. Hogan also talked about his recent breakthrough case of the coronavirus.

“Because I had that protection,” Mr. Hogan said of the vaccine, “I had sort of a bad cold. What we’re faced with now — unfortunately, this new omicron variant is impacting just about everyone, including many people who are fully protected, but it’s keeping them out of the hospital and that’s the thing we have to keep in mind.”

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Hospitalization rates will be the true test of Omicron, Fauci says.

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Dr. Anthony S. Fauci last week during a virtual meeting with President Biden and other members of the White House Covid-19 Response Team.Credit...Cheriss May for The New York Times

Americans should focus less on the skyrocketing number of coronavirus infections and more on the number of hospitalizations and deaths, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

Over the past week, an average of more than 401,200 cases has been reported each day in the United States, tripling from two weeks ago and the first time the number has topped 400,000, according to a New York Times database (new case numbers are slightly depressed because fewer states are reporting after the New Year’s holiday). Hospitalizations were by comparison up 33 percent, however, to 92,300, while deaths had dropped 4 percent to an average of 1,249 daily.

Dr. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, noted that many new infections, especially in people who are vaccinated and boosted, result in no symptoms or mild symptoms, making the absolute number of cases less important than they were for previous versions of the virus.

“As you get further on and the infections become less severe, it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations as opposed to the total number of cases,” Dr. Fauci said.

That advice is in keeping with what many epidemiologists have said all along. Despite the daily drumbeat of case counts, the number of positive tests has never been a perfect indicator of the course of the epidemic.

Covid patients in hospitals and I.C.U.s
Early data may be incomplete.
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
50,000
100,000
150,000 hospitalized
Hospitalized
In I.C.U.s
0
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.

The number of tests has exploded because the Omicron variant seems to be much more contagious than Delta or other earlier variants and more people are getting tested for mild symptoms. What’s more, the official numbers are almost certainly an undercount, because many people are testing positive on rapid at-home tests or carrying the virus without any symptoms.

Yet, as Dr. Fauci told Mr. Stephanopoulos, the concern is not so much the mild or asymptomatic cases being picked up with widespread testing as it is the number of people with severe or fatal infections.

“The real bottom line that you want to be concerned about,” he said, “is are we getting protected by the vaccines from severe disease leading to hospitalization?”

So far, vaccines and boosters appear to be providing that protection. But the unvaccinated remain at risk.

“I’m still very concerned about the tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated at all because even though many of them are going to get asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic, a fair number of them are going to get severe disease,” Dr. Fauci said.

Also, even if Omicron is milder, as most evidence suggests, a higher caseload means more health care workers who can’t work because they test positive as well as more chances that people could get sick enough to require medical care.

“We have got to be careful about that, because, even if you have a less of a percentage of severity, when you have multi-multi-multi-fold more people getting infected, the net amount is you’re still going to get a lot of people that are going to be needing hospitalization,” he said.

Dr. Fauci also said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be reconsidering its guidelines for people who test positive for the coronavirus. The guidelines as of now do not require a negative test before people venture out after five days of isolation. But Dr. Fauci suggested that the agency may soon revise these guidelines to include testing. “I think we’re going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the C.D.C.,” he said.

U.S. judge blocks vaccine mandate for Head Start program.

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The Youth in Need Head Start and Early Head Start day care center in Wentzville, Mo., in July.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

A federal judge in Louisiana has blocked for now the White House’s requirement that all workers in the Head Start early education program be vaccinated.

The preliminary injunction, issued Saturday by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, also halts a mask requirement for students aged two or older who are in close contact with other people or indoors.

The ruling was brought to Judge Doughty by 24 states that sued Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Head Start is a federal program for young children from low-income families that offers early educational and child development support services.

In September, President Biden released his “Path out of the Pandemic” six-part Covid action plan, which called for teachers and staff of Head Start and Early Head Start programs to be fully vaccinated against Covid by the end of January. Staff of schools operated by the Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Education were also required to be vaccinated.

“These schools and programs collectively serve more than 1 million children each year and employ nearly 300,000 staff,” the president’s plan read.

Judge Doughty cited a violation of separation of powers in his ruling.

“The issue in this case is not whether individuals should take the Covid-19 vaccine, but whether federal agencies can mandate individuals to take a vaccine or be fired,” he wrote. “If the executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, then this country is no longer a democracy — it is a monarchy.”

It wasn’t clear if the White House would fight the injunction, but the Supreme Court has recently upheld vaccine mandates for New York health care workers, Indiana University and air travel.

In November, Judge Doughty, who was nominated to the court in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump, also blocked President Biden’s national vaccine mandate for health care workers. The Biden administration appealed that decision.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Many Republican lawmakers, including the attorneys general of Arizona and Alabama, praised the injunction.

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‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ will close for 9 weeks on Broadway amid Covid surge.

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The new musical adaptation of “Mrs. Doubtfire” is planning to reopen on March 14.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

In a startling illustration of the financial damage a resurgent pandemic is causing on Broadway, the producer of a new musical adaptation of “Mrs. Doubtfire” has decided to close down his show for nine weeks, saying he sees no other way to save the production.

Kevin McCollum, a veteran Broadway producer whose previous credits include “Rent” and “Avenue Q,” said he would close the musical comedy beginning Jan. 10, with a plan to reopen on March 14. The move will cost 115 people their jobs for that period; McCollum said he is committed to rehiring those who want to return.

“My job is to protect the jobs long-term of those who are working on ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ and this is the best way I can do that today,” he said in an interview. “I can’t just sit idly by when there’s a solution, albeit unprecedented and painful. I can’t guarantee anything, but at this moment this is the most prudent thing I can do with the tools I have.”

McCollum said that if he does not attempt the hiatus, the show would run out of money and be forced to close within three weeks. And there is plenty of reason to believe that is not hyperbole: Five Broadway shows in December decided to close earlier than anticipated, including the musicals “Ain’t Too Proud,” “Diana,” “Jagged Little Pill” and “Waitress,” as well as the play “Thoughts of a Colored Man.”

“Mrs. Doubtfire,” like all Broadway shows, has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. The production, in development for years and capitalized for $17 million, had gotten through just three preview performances in March 2020 when Broadway shut down; it was closed for 19 months before resuming previews in October, and then opened in December, bolstered by a nearly $10 million grant from the Small Business Administration.

Goldman Sachs follows its Wall Street rivals in asking staff to work from home.

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Goldman Sachs is asking its employees in the United States to work from home for the next couple of weeks.Credit...Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Goldman Sachs told its U.S. employees on Sunday to work from home for the first two weeks of the year, joining Wall Street competitors that had already given similar instructions as coronavirus cases have surged.

Employees who are able to work remotely should do so until Jan. 18 in response to rising infection rates, the investment bank said in an email to employees. The shift in policy came after the Wall Street firm announced new booster and testing requirements last week, but, unlike many of its peers, did not encourage staff to work from home.

Goldman called most workers back to the office in June, and its chief executive, David M. Solomon, is a strong proponent of working in the office. The bank has 43,000 employees, many of whom are based in its Manhattan headquarters.

New York State recorded over 85,000 new coronavirus cases on the last day of 2021, the highest one-day total in the state since the pandemic began. The Omicron variant has prompted big Wall Street companies, which have been eager to bring back workers, to delay those plans.

Before the latest surge, office attendance had remained stubbornly low as bankers staged a quiet revolt: parents are still concerned about passing the virus to their children, suburban dwellers eschew long commutes and many workers have shown that they are able to be productive while working from home.

As workers trickle back, the financial industry, which employs 332,100 people in New York City, may also have to ramp up its vaccine efforts. Eric Adams, who was sworn in as mayor of New York City early Saturday, said he would maintain his predecessor’s private-sector mandate.

Goldman currently requires people entering its buildings to be inoculated, and starting on Feb. 1, it will require a booster for all employees eligible to receive one. It had already announced that starting Jan. 10, staff coming into the office would be tested for the virus twice a week at on-site testing centers, increasing from a current requirement of once a week.

JPMorgan Chase gave staff flexibility to work from home in the first two weeks of the year, but wants them to return to in-office schedules no later than Feb. 1, according to a memo sent to employees last week.

The bank may also amend its policy on vaccinations, which it has not required so far.

“Government-issued vaccine mandates may likely make it difficult or impossible for us to continue to employ unvaccinated employees, so getting the vaccine is very important,” the memo said. The bank may soon also require a booster shot for people entering its buildings.

Citigroup expanded remote working for its U.S. employees.

“We are asking that you work from home for the first few weeks of the new year if you are able to do so,” the bank said in a memo to staff on Thursday. “We will continue to monitor the data and provide an update in January on when we expect to be back in the office.”

That guidance applied to employees in more than 30 offices around the country who had been called back since September. Employees in New York City and New Jersey were already given the option to work from home in the final weeks of the year.

Wells Fargo has postponed its return to the office, while corporate employees at Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank were given more leeway to work remotely over the holidays.

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Two studies provide good news for the antiviral drug remdesivir.

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A health worker preparing remdesivir for a coronavirus patient in Quezon City, Philippines, in August.Credit...Eloisa Lopez/Reuters

In April of 2020, federal scientists reported the first glimmer of hope against the new coronavirus: a large clinical trial had found that an antiviral drug, remdesivir, shortened recovery time in hospitalized patients from 15 to 11 days.

The drug was authorized a few months later and has also been cleared in more than 50 other countries. But remdesivir’s use has been limited to hospitalized patients, and its intravenous administration has been an obstacle.

Two new studies, published in late December, indicate that both issues could be improved in the not-too-distant future. One found that infused remdesivir appears to be markedly effective when given earlier in the course of illness, before a patient is hospitalized. And a study in monkeys suggests that inhaled remdesivir could eventually replace infusions.

The study of remdesivir treatment in patients who were not hospitalized, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved 592 patients at risk for severe disease who had not been hospitalized. Half received a three-day course of remdesivir and the others got a placebo.

Remdesivir greatly reduced patients’ chances of hospitalization or death: 5 of 279 patients, or 1.7 percent who received remdesivir were hospitalized by day 28 of their infection, compared with 18 of 283, or 6.5 percent, who got a placebo. What’s more, because all variants of the virus carry the particular enzyme that remdesivir blocks, the drug should work against Omicron or any other new variant that happens to emerge.

The National Institutes of Health this week updated its treatment guidelines to recommend remdesivir to nonhospitalized patients.

A separate study, supported by Gilead Sciences, the maker of remdesivir, tested an inhaled version of the drug on African green monkeys.

As reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the researchers used a 20-fold lower dose of the inhaled drug than what is used in an intravenous infusion. Yet that low dose resulted in a 53 percent higher concentration of the drug in the animals’ lungs. The researchers also reported that inhaled remdesivir was as effective as the intravenous version in reducing the amount of virus in the animals’ lungs.

Much more research is needed before the inhaled version of the drug could be used in people. But if remdesivir could eventually be inhaled at home, the hope is that it could provide a more convenient way for patients at high risk to be protected from severe disease.

Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account

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Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, at an event last month with another Republican, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Twitter on Sunday permanently suspended the personal account of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia, after the company said she had violated its Covid-19 misinformation policies.

Twitter said that Ms. Greene had a fifth “strike,” which meant that her account will not be restored. The company had issued her a fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that the vaccines were “failing.” Ms. Greene was given a third strike less than a month before that when she had tweeted that Covid-19 was not dangerous for people unless they were obese or over age 65, and said vaccines should not be required.

Ms. Greene’s official Congressional account, @RepMTG, remains active because tweets from that account did not violate the service’s rules.

“We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy,” Katie Rosborough, a Twitter spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Ms. Greene did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Her suspension comes as coronavirus cases have surged again in the United States from the highly infectious Omicron variant.

Twitter has long banned users from sharing misinformation about the coronavirus that could lead to harm. In March, the company introduced a policy that explained the penalties for sharing lies about the virus and vaccines. People who violate that policy are subject to escalating punishments known as strikes and could face a permanent ban if they repeatedly share misinformation about the virus.

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GLOBAL ROUNDUP

France and England impose mask guidance for children.

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A teacher in London handing out face masks to students last March.Credit...Kevin Coombs/Reuters

England is putting air purifiers in classrooms and strongly encouraging students to wear masks as schools prepare to reopen with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus driving a record surge of cases.

The classroom is “the very best place for children,” Britain’s education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said Sunday in a statement, adding that officials were doing “everything in our power to minimize disruption.”

The recommendation for students in seventh grade and above — which comes on top of restrictions imposed in Britain last month, including mandatory face masks in most public indoor venues — will be in place until Jan. 26. The government also said it would install thousands of air-cleaning units in schools and colleges to help improve ventilation.

The guidance comes as European countries have been particularly hard-hit by Omicron infections over the holiday period.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
50,000
100,000
150,000 cases
7-day average
4,111
Source: Data for the United Kingdom comes from the Department for Health and Social Care, Public Health England, Public Health Scotland, Public Health Wales, Public Health Agency of Northern Ireland and the Chief Medical Officer Directorate. Population data from U.K. Data Service Census Support. The Office for National Statistics also produces a weekly report on the number of deaths that mention Covid-19 on a death certificate. This figure, which includes deaths outside of hospitals, is many thousands of deaths higher than the reported daily death toll. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Last week, Britain reported a daily average of 172,738 new cases, according to a New York Times database, the highest peak since the pandemic began. The sharp increase in case numbers has prompted other nations to impose rules on travelers to and from the country. The Kuwaiti Embassy to the United Kingdom, for example, advised its citizens in Britain on Sunday to return home over fears of new restrictions, according to the country’s official state news agency.

France has also introduced new measures to fight the Omicron surge. In a decree issued on Saturday, the French government made face coverings compulsory in indoor public places for everyone age 6 and over.

The country has recorded more than 200,000 new infections for four consecutive days. Last week, in an effort to curb the spread of the virus, cities like Lyon and Paris made it compulsory to wear masks outdoors, as well.

In other global news:

  • In Amsterdam, riot police with batons and shields broke up a crowd of several thousand who had gathered in the central Museum Square on Sunday to protest against pandemic lockdown measures and vaccinations, the Reuters news service reported. Public gatherings of more than two people are prohibited under restrictions imposed by the Netherlands in an effort to prevent the Omicron variant of the coronavirus overwhelming an already strained health care system. At least 30 people were detained after scuffles, during which four officers were injured, police said in a statement. The Netherlands went into a sudden lockdown on Dec. 19, with the government ordering the closure of all but essential stores until at least Jan. 14.

  • The German operator of a cruise ship that had been stuck in a port in Portugal because of an outbreak of the coronavirus among its crew pulled the plug on the voyage on Sunday after some passengers tested positive, port authorities told the Reuters news service. The ship, with 2,844 passengers and 1,353 crew onboard docked in Lisbon on Wednesday while en route to the island of Madeira for New Year’s celebrations, but it was unable to continue after 52 cases of Covid-19 were detected among the fully vaccinated crew. It had been allowed to leave port and head to the Spanish island of Lanzarote on Sunday, but when another 12 people tested positive, including four passengers, the company decided to end the cruise and disembark the passengers, the ship’s captain said, adding that the passengers would be transported home by air.

big city

New Yorkers are finding ways to soldier on in the face of a surging Omicron.

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New Yorkers, with some of the highest vaccination rates in the country, have also perfected the art of lounging and socializing al fresco.Credit...Sarah Blesener for The New York Times

On various occasions during the fall, I tried and failed to make a dinner reservation at Gage & Tollner, the historic restaurant on the Fulton Mall in Brooklyn that reopened during the spring to much fanfare, after 17 years.

Boosted before Thanksgiving and having recovered from a recent breakthrough Covid infection, I tried again this week in a new spirit of invincibility. Logging on to the restaurant’s website and also to Resy, I clicked on every night in January that the restaurant was open, in search of a table for two. This proved fruitless, unless I elected to eat at the bar on Sunday the 23rd at 10 o’clock, at which point I’d be replaying crucial scenes in a prestige cable drama to which I had fallen asleep. Shaking my head in disbelief and returning to my computer a few minutes later, I discovered that option was no longer available either. Surely, the vigilance with which the restaurant industry has checked the vaccination records of its patrons for months has fueled this prevailing confidence.

Even as Omicron has torn through the country in the final weeks of the year, upending everything, setting case records, canceling flights, causing long lines at testing sites, threatening a smooth reopening of school in January, returning us to the devotional of the propane heat lamp, it is hard not to feel for New York an appreciation that is snobbish, imperious, unambivalent. Rivaling nearly any place on earth, the city’s vaccination rate among adults who have so far received one shot stands at 92 percent, a figure achieved before a mandate requiring private-sector employers to have their workers immunized went into effect this week.

Mask wearing on the subway and even on the street where you don’t have to cover your face — unless you are avoiding cloud bursts of weed smoke or the cold — is robust to the point that we must imagine it leaves public health officials in other places dumbfounded and envious. “There’s a matter-of-factness and a lack of whimpering, which gets everyone through,” as the playwright Paul Rudnick put it on Twitter the other day, making note of these commitments.

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Puerto Rico had a 4,600 percent increase in Covid cases in recent weeks.

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A testing site in San Juan, P.R., on Friday.Credit...Gabriella N. Baez for The New York Times

Armed with her vaccine passport and a giddy urge to celebrate the holiday season, Laura Delgado — and 60,000 other people in Puerto Rico — attended a Bad Bunny concert three weeks ago.

Three days later, she was sick with Covid-19, one of about 2,000 people who fell ill as a result of the two-day event.

“We did so well; we followed the rules,” said Ms. Delgado, a 53-year-old interior designer. “We followed the mask mandate. Our vaccination rate was so high that we let our guard down. The second Christmas came, we were like, ‘We’re going to party!’”

Covid patients in hospitals and I.C.U.s
Early data may be incomplete.
Apr. 2020
Oct.
Apr. 2021
Oct.
Apr. 2022
Oct.
500 hospitalized
Hospitalized
In I.C.U.s
0
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.

The superspreader concert helped usher in an explosion of Covid-19 cases in Puerto Rico, which until then had been celebrating one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the United States. The concert was one of a series of business events, company holiday parties and family gatherings that fueled a 4,600 percent increase in cases on the island, a surge that public health officials worry could linger into the New Year; the Puerto Rican holiday season stretches to Three Kings Day on Jan. 6.

While the Omicron variant has besieged the entire country, it is especially worrisome in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory already overwhelmed by government bankruptcy, an exodus of health professionals and a fragile health care system. Officials imposed a new wave of tough restrictions on travelers and diners in hopes of staving off the new wave of cases.

Rafael Irizarry, a Harvard University statistician who keeps a dashboard of Puerto Rico Covid-19 data, tweeted the daunting facts: A third of all coronavirus cases the island has recorded since the start of the pandemic occurred in the past month. The number of cases per 100,000 residents jumped to 225, from three, in three weeks.

In December, the number of hospitalizations doubled — twice.

As the pandemic wears on Americans, mild disappointments lead to bad behavior.

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Checking in at Kennedy Airport in New York the day after Christmas. In 2021, there were 5,779 reports of unruly passengers on planes, most of them related to mask mandates, the Federal Aviation Administration says.Credit...Jeenah Moon/Reuters

Nerves at the grocery store were already frayed, in the way of these things as the pandemic slouches toward its third year, when the customer arrived. He wanted Cambozola, a type of blue cheese. He had been cooped up for a long time. He scoured the dairy area; nothing. He flagged down an employee who also did not see the cheese. He demanded that she hunt in the back and look it up on the store computer. No luck.

And then he lost it, just another out-of-control member of the great chorus of American consumer outrage, 2021 style.

“Have you seen a man in his 60s have a full temper tantrum because we don’t have the expensive imported cheese he wants?” said the employee, Anna Luna, who described the mood at the store, in Minnesota, as “angry, confused and fearful.”

“You’re looking at someone and thinking, ‘I don’t think this is about the cheese.’”

It is a strange, uncertain moment, especially with Omicron tearing through the country. Things feel broken. The pandemic seems like a Möbius strip of bad news. Companies keep postponing back-to-the-office dates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps changing its rules. Political discord has calcified into political hatred. And when people have to meet each other in transactional settings — in stores, on airplanes, over the phone on customer-service calls — they are, in the words of Ms. Luna, “devolving into children.”

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