Incidences in the four-digit range. More than 50,000 new cases per day in a single city. Omicron tsunami!
New York City had to overcome precisely this extreme corona situation due to the rapid spread of the omicron variant . But the recipe: extensive shrugging of the shoulders – from residents and authorities.
Neither lockdowns were imposed, nor were the grandstands of sports halls cleared, neither were people who loved to dance banned from the disco nor were there upper limits set for crowds. Public schools also keep classrooms open after the holidays.
The only additional protective measure prescribed by Governor Kathy Hochul (63) is 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 serenity can serve as a solid tactic for the next phase of the pandemic drama: living with the virus!
Sure, every resident is stuck here the trauma of the big “outbreak” in spring 2020 in the 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, this time there was no mass death in the hospitals: Most recently, an average of 64 victims a day were reported 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 story, as a vascular surgeon friend of mine at a Brooklyn clinic said: “We were quickly pushing the limits , half of our patients were treated for Covid – and a third of the staff is on sick leave after 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 traveling through Covid-19 America without getting infected, Omikron finally caught up with me.
But the New Yorkers are demonstrating their famous resilience, as tech entrepreneur Alex Behrens (51) observed: “You see more masks on the street , but otherwise life seems normal!” The former “city that never sleeps” is still not steaming from all cylinders, especially since Omikron “postponed the return of employees to the high-rise office buildings by several months”, so 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 also includes the US government under the Democrat Joe Biden (79) shows:
The CDC health authority roughly 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 former corona hardliners in states ruled by Democrats were carried away by a new lockdown hysteria.
In New York City, the curves (infections, hospital admissions, deaths) have been falling since the last one days again. 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 a lot of its fright – and the way back to normality seems feasible.
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