Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will be forced into isolation by the Omicron Covid variant which is on course to drive cases higher...
Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will be forced into isolation by the Omicron Covid variant which is on course to drive cases higher than ever ahead of the city's holiday celebrations.
Daily Covid cases in the city are approaching the same level as the December 2021 peak, and the super-mutant Omicron variant is widely expected to drive infections far higher because it is has a greater ability to evade vaccines and reinfect people.
However the effect on the city's hospitalizations remains to be seen, with admission rates in South Africa remaining relatively low despite record infection rates.
While it is unclear if this will be replicated in highly vaccinated populations like New York, many scientists hope that the Omicron variant causes milder illness than previous variants.
Whatever happens, hundreds of thousands of city residents will be forced in to ten day isolation once they are infected with Omicron - potentially impacting services in the Big Apple.
New York is on the same trajectory as London, where Omicron now makes up 60 percent of Covid cases and infections are growing exponentially.
King's College London epidemiologist Tim Spector said: 'New York looks set to follow London as Covid cases surge again and testing struggles to keep up with the doubling time. Expect other big cities to follow.'
The Covid positivity rate has doubled in the Big Apple in the last three days and new daily cases have spiked by 26 percent - with a total of 3,709 active infections.
A seven-day average of 2,899 infections was recorded this week, that is a 132 percent increase on two weeks ago.
But Mayor Bill de Blasio is adamant that the city should go ahead with its traditional ball drop in Times Square on New Year's Eve.
'We're going to watch very carefully,' Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday. 'It's still more than two weeks away. And if at any point we need to alter the plan, we will.'
'Because it is an event where people are fully vaccinated and all outdoors, right now that's something we're going forward with,' he said of the Times Square celebration.
However, people with just two vaccinations - the current definition of 'fully vaccinated' - are provided with almost no protection against infection by the Omicron variant. However, they still retain some protection against illness.
The Covid positivity rate has doubled in the Big Apple in the last three days and new daily cases have spiked by 26 percent - with a total of 3,709 active infections. A seven-day average of 2,899 infections was recorded this week, that is a 132 percent increase on two weeks ago.
Infections are soaring among the unvaccinated according to the latest data
A map of the boroughs showing the positivity rate across the city
Columbia University researchers published a study on Wednesday which said Omicron's 'extensive' mutations can 'greatly compromise' all major Covid vaccines.
They tested Omicron against the blood of people vaccinated with two doses of the four big brands of vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.
There was a 21-fold drop in neutralising antibodies against Omicron after two doses of Pfizer compared to the Delta variant and a 8.6-fold drop with Moderna's jabs.
Antibodies were so low from a two-dose course of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca's jabs that they were undetectable, offering virtually no protection against infection.
For patients given a booster jab, the fall in antibodies was 6.5 times less for Omicron than Delta.
Last month, New York extended eligibility for boosters to everyone aged 18 and over, but it has not yet become part of New York's vaccine mandates.
The nationwide definition for fully vaccinated has not yet changed, according to the CDC, although Dr Anthony Fauci is recommending the added protection for everyone.
The Metropolitan Opera announced Wednesday that from January 17 all staff and audience members would need a booster shot to enter the opera house.
The announcement comes a day after NYU issued the same declaration for eligible students and staff for the spring semester.
Connecticut's Wesleyan University will require boosters from mid-January.
At Cornell University cases have soared to a record-high 469 active student infections on campus.
In the the first three months of the fall 2021 semester there were just 465 cases in total.
Heads of staff at the college in Ithaca, upstate NY, have banned all informal and formal social gatherings between students.
All final exams have been moved online, gyms and libraries are shut, with all undergraduates having to work from their dorms or homes.
The Met this week became the first arts institution to introduce a booster requirement amid chaos on Broadway with a string of headline shows shutdown in the last week.
Performances of Tina — The Tina Turner Musical, Hamilton and Mrs. Doubtfire were canceled in the last few days because of virus cases in their all-vaccinated casts and crews.
The Big Apple's theatre industry, worth $1.8 billion to the economy, has once again been thrown into turmoil by the disease despite introducing strict measures to control the spread.
Jay Varma, senior public health advisor to Mayor de Blasio, on Thursday described the growing infection rate in the city as unprecedented.
'Um, we've never seen this before in NYC. Test positivity doubling in three days,' he tweeted.
At Cornell University cases have soared to a record-high 469 active student infections on campus. In the the first three months of the fall 2021 semester there were just 465 cases in total. Heads of staff at the college in Ithaca, upstate NY, have banned all informal and formal social gatherings between students.
The graphs show the amount of the coronavirus detected in human bronchial cells (left) and lung cells (right) 24 and 48 hours after coming into contact with the original strain of the virus (pink), Delta (orange) and Omicron (red). There was 70 times more Omicron recorded in the bronchus — the main pipe connecting the airways and lungs — compared to previous strains, but 10 times less virus in the lungs when compared to the original version and Delta. Experts from the University of Hong Kong said this suggests the virus is more transmissible but may cause less severe illness
People line up for a Covid test in Times Square on Thursday
Long lines of people waiting for a Covid test are seen in Brooklyn on Thursday
People line up in Greenwich Village, near some of the NYU buildings, on Thursday
Jay Varma, senior public health advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio, described the sharp increase of positivity rate as something unseen before in New York City
He noted the city's positivity rate from December 9 to December 12, pointing out that it had doubled from 3.9 percent to 7.8 percent.
'Note: Test % is only for PCR & NYC does more per capita daily than most places ~67K PCR/day + 19K [reported] antigen over past few days,' he added.
Long lines were seen across all five boroughs as people waited to get tested, despite the city being 81.5 per cent fully-vaccinated, with 16.5 per cent of residents also having their booster.
Unvaccinated people are being hit especially hard by this surge, with official city data showing that 804.46 out of every 100,000 testing positive for the virus during the week that ended on December 5 - nearly doubling from 415.99 cases per 100,000 a week earlier.
According to city data, 96.81 our of every 100,000 vaccinated residents tested positive that week.
Gerlan Suela, a Healthline Force employee administering tests in Astoria, Queens on Thursday told The New York Post that business was booming at his plastic bubble on Steinway Street.
'Normally we have 25 to 30 people per day but this morning, in just an hour, I had more than 50 people,' he said.
'I started swabbing at 8:30 a.m. I ran out in an hour. I waited an hour to get restocked.'
Restaurant and nightclub manager Sunny Ahmad, 24, told the paper he waited 45 minutes at one site, only to find out that rapid test weren't available there.
Ahmad estimated he'd have to wait another hour to get tested but said: 'It's worth it.'
'I do it twice a week, not because of my job requirement but for my own safety and to protect my family,' he said.
In Brooklyn, a testing site in Williamsburg had lines around the block at lunchtime, as people checked their status.
In Manhattan's Greenwich Village, the LabQ Diagnostics mobile testing center at West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue had run out of rapid tests by mid-afternoon on Thursday.
Marcos Vizcarrondo told the Post he was due to fly abroad on Saturday, ahead of a wedding on December 26.
He spent the weekend with friends who have since tested positive.
'I'll be so pissed if I can't travel,' he said.
In the Financial District, a man who works in the area was among about 50 people waiting to get tested in a tent run by EZ Test NY at Wall Street and Broadway.
'I'm traveling for the holidays so I am trying to take a quick test - but this doesn't really seem quick at all,' he told The Post.
'I'm going out of the country and with this new variant that's out now, I am definitely nervous.
'It just never ends.'
The city is also now recording 53.75 new Covid cases per every 100,000 residents every day, according to official data - a 26 per cent increase from the 42.59 figure being reported only two days ago.
Varma also said that 7.8 per cent of Covid tests in the city were coming back positive on December 12, a two-fold increase from the 3.9 per cent figure recorded only three days earlier.
While it will take around a week to find out how many of these cases are of the Omicron or Delta virus strains, either way, cases are spiking in America's densest city at a rate not seen previously.
CDC experts have previously estimated that 13 per cent of new COVID infections in NYC and neighboring New Jersey are being caused by Omicron - way above the national average of around four per cent. Both states are now set to become the epicenter for COVID in the US for the second time, and offer the rest of the US an insight of what to expect in the coming weeks.
This surge also comes just 11 days before strict mandates announced by de Blasio earlier this month go into effect on December 27, and days after a new statewide mask order began enforcement on Monday.
New York City was the first place in the U.S. to get hammered by the original Covid wave back in March of 2020, and the situation in the city proved to be a sign of things to come for everyone else.
The unprecedented rise in cases in the over recent days could also be a sign to the rest of the nation how quickly the Omicron variant can spread - and how brutal a winter it may be for the U.S.
The city is currently averaging 2,900 cases every day, and the state as a whole have sequenced 50 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant - only trailing Texas.
Omicron also accounts for around one percent of sequenced cases from the city, the department reports, although the CDC estimates that the true figure is 13 times higher. NY city officials also say says that ten percent of new cases in the city are being sequenced.
New York City's health department told DailyMail.com that over 1.5 million residents had received a booster as of Thursday afternoon, which is around 18 per cent of the city's total population.
Early data on the Omicron variant, which was first discovered in late November by South African officials, shows that it can evade protection provided by the initial vaccine regimens.
Both Pfizer and Moderna - manufacturers of the U.S.'s most popular vaccines - both revealed data showing their booster shots do re-establish protection against the variant.
With more than four out of every five New Yorkers un-boosted, a vast majority of the city is vulnerable to Omicron.
With many also protected from Delta by the vaccine, the stage is set for the new strain to become dominant in the city.
The surge in cases comes just as a new in-door mask mandate goes into effect across the state.
Starting Monday, New Yorkers are required to wear a mask in all in-door public spaces that do not require proof of vaccine to enter.
Even stricter measures are coming to the city in two weeks as well. At the start of December, Mayor de Blasio announced a private sector vaccine mandate and new requirements to enter some venues starting on December 27.
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