Colleges are moving finals online. Offices are putting reopening plans on pause. Cities are instituting mask mandates.
Exactly one year after the United States kicked off its vaccination campaign against COVID-19, cases are surging once again as the country cobbles together a response.
About 120,000 coronavirus cases are being identified each day in the U.S. — up from 80,000 a few weeks ago.
Contagion is expected to worsen as falling temperatures bring more indoor gatherings. Several hospitals in the Midwest and Northeast, the places hardest hit, are already nearing capacity.
The big unknown this time is omicron, the variant that was first detected last month in South Africa and is spreading around the world so rapidly that experts believe it could overtake delta as the dominant strain this winter.
Federal officials said that omicron accounts for just 3% of new cases nationwide, though that figure is 13% in New York and New Jersey. Those numbers are certain to grow.
As a fatigued public grows increasingly resistant to measures aimed at controlling the virus, schools, offices, cities and families are making their own risk calculations in the busiest travel season of the year.
This week, Princeton, Cornell and New York universities have canceled events or moved final exams from the classroom to online.
“I feel safe, but there are concerns all around,” said Anthony Cruz, a junior education studies major at New York University who will now take his finals online.
He said some students went home early for winter break. Pop-up COVID-19 testing sites have appeared in Washington Square Park by the university.
New infections in the city are at their highest level since the spring. Broadway shows have had little choice but to cancel performances, because cast members are getting sick.
In the Midwest, overwhelmed hospitals are making desperate pleas for residents to wear masks and get vaccinated.
“We’re heartbroken. We’re overwhelmed,” said an advertisement that the Mayo Clinic placed in Minnesota newspapers. “Our emergency departments are overfilled and we have patients in every bed. Now an ominous question looms: Will you be able to get care from your local community hospital without delay? Today, that is uncertain.”
In Michigan, infections and hospital admissions are close to the highest they’ve been during the pandemic.
That hasn’t changed Kevin Barthold’s plans to enjoy the holidays with family and friends. The 59-year-old who does installations and repairs for a telecommunications company worked throughout the pandemic and got a religious exemption when his employer mandated vaccination.
