A familiar anxiety returns to New Yorkers as virus cases surge.

Holiday plans abruptly reversing, eating places closing, Broadway exhibits going darkish whereas, blocks away, lengthy traces type exterior testing websites — it’s as if it have been 2020 another time.

New York City and the encompassing Northeast, the epicenter of the coronavirus’s arrival in 2020, is being buffeted by a brand new surge in infections that appears poised to disrupt the lengthy awaited return to normalcy. New case studies in New York State have skyrocketed almost 60 p.c prior to now two weeks.

“It is clear that the Omicron variant is here in New York City in full force,” Mayor Bill de Blasio stated on Thursday.

Deidre Depke, 59, ready in line for a take a look at on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, didn’t want the mayor to inform her. “Monday I wasn’t even thinking about it,” she stated, “and Thursday I’m in a panic.”

The variety of new cases reported statewide on Thursday alone — 18,276, greater than 8,300 of them in New York City — was the best since no less than January.

It stays unknown to what extent Omicron will trigger severe sickness. Scientists imagine that vaccines will nonetheless present safety towards the worst outcomes, and boosters are possible to present further safety towards an infection, preliminary knowledge suggests.

The public well being image in different states was additionally rising bleaker. Connecticut is averaging greater than 2,600 new cases a day, up from about 330 firstly of November, and Rhode Island is including cases on the highest price within the nation.