The US is a week away from a Christmas that was supposed to feel far more festive than the last. Two weeks away from a new year in which it was once possible to imagine the pandemic fading into the background of mostly normal life.

Instead, nearly 1,300 Americans are dying every day from the coronavirus, more than 120,000 are testing positive, and millions more are experiencing a kind of fear — that very particular kind amplified by a lack of information, and by the knowledge that even what seems clear this afternoon could change by evening — that they thought they had left behind.

“It’s as bad as we expected,” governor Kathy Hochul of New York said on Thursday, amid a statewide surge that epidemiologists tie to the new omicron variant. “We’re asking people to follow common sense. Get vaccinated, get boosted. Please don’t take a chance.”

While officials say vaccinated people with omicron can expect asymptomatic or mild infections, those who are unvaccinated should not expect the same.

“For the unvaccinated, you are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourself, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm,” Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said.

Only 61 per cent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and far fewer have received a booster shot. The average daily number of new cases in the US has increased 31 per cent in the past two weeks, to about 124,000, according to The New York Times’s coronavirus tracker. Hospitalisations have risen 20 per cent. Deaths have risen 23 per cent. Experts expect these numbers to increase as people travel and gather for the holiday season. creating more opportunities for the virus to spread.

In rural West Michigan, doctors in already packed hospitals are bracing for more cases of the new omicron variant. Researchers are racing to determine the answers to urgent questions, including whether, as early data from South Africa has suggested, the variant might produce less severe illness.

Lines at New York City testing sites are circling the block. As restaurants close, Broadway shows are cancelled, it’s almost as if it were 2020 all over again.

New York Times News Service