Incidences in the four-digit range. More than 50,000 new cases per day in a single city. Omicron Tsunami!
It was precisely this extreme corona situation that New York City had to overcome due to the rapid spread of the omicron variant. But the recipe: extensive shrugging of the shoulders – from residents and authorities alike.
No lockdowns were imposed, nor were the grandstands of sports halls cleared, nor were dance enthusiasts banned from the disco, nor were upper limits set for crowds. Public schools also keep classrooms open after the holidays.
The only additional protective measure that Governor Kathy Hochul (63) prescribed was the wearing of masks indoors. The presentation of a vaccination card when entering restaurants or fitness centers has been valid since September. But nobody here would think of asking customers to take a negative Covid test on their way to the bar.
The new calm can serve as a solid tactic for the next phase of the pandemic drama: living with the virus!
Of course, every resident still has the trauma of the big “outbreak” in spring 2020 in their bones: deserted streets, constant wailing of sirens, bodies trucks in front of the hospitals, no planes in the sky. Nowhere else on earth has there been such a tragically high number of victims with 36,364 dead as here.
Despite the high number of infections, the mass deaths in the hospitals did not materialize this time: Most recently, an average of 64 victims were reported every day over the past seven days. Almost 800 people died on the deadliest day of the pandemic almost two years ago.
Of course, mere statistics don’t tell the whole reality, as a vascular surgeon friend of mine at a Brooklyn clinic said: “We were quickly pushing the envelope, half our patients were being treated for Covid – and a third of the staff is on sick leave from infections “, explains Dr. Paul Haser the difficult situation.
Communicating with friends and acquaintances revealed how many people had been infected with omicron. At times it seemed as if “half the city was infected” by the virus tsunami, as an acquaintance said.
My family was also directly affected for the first time: After almost two years of continuous travel through Covid-19 America without being infected, Omikron finally caught up with me.
But the New Yorkers are demonstrating their famous resilience, as tech entrepreneur Alex Behrens (51) also observed: “You see more masks on the street, but otherwise life seems normal!” The former “city that never is still not asleep, especially since Omikron postponed the return of employees to the high-rise office buildings “by several months,” says Behrens.
Overall, with all the remaining challenges from the recent omicron wave, it is worth mentioning a new pragmatism in the rest of the United States, which the US government under Democrat Joe Biden (79) is also showing:
The CDC, for example, halved the recommended quarantine period from ten to five days. The White House continued to call for vaccinations, regular testing and the use of masks. But not even previous corona hardliners in states governed by Democrats were carried away by a new lockdown hysteria.
In New York City, the curves (infections, hospital admissions, deaths) have been falling again for the past few days. It’s a signal that the city is over the hill! And the contours of a new phase of the Covid era became visible here: A corona outbreak that could be mastered without radical measures.
The big city was once the “ground zero” of horror, now it is a model for a new hope: It was demonstrated that the pandemic with the omicron variant has lost much of its horror – and that the way back to normality seems feasible.
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