Jan. 2, 2022, 10:52 p.m. ET

Daily Covid Briefing

New York’s surge shows no sign of slowing down.

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Cases in Tompkins County, N.Y., which includes Ithaca, have increased by 640 percent over the last 14 days. Cornell University canceled a graduation ceremony and instituted other measures.Credit...Heather Ainsworth/Associated Press

New York State reported yet another increase in coronavirus cases on Saturday as a convergence between the fast-spreading Omicron variant and a winter surge of the Delta variant continues to drive a spike in infections.

The 21,908 new cases reported on Saturday was a slight increase over the 21,027 cases reported the day before. Both were daily records for the state.

New reported cases by day
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
20,000
40,000
60,000 cases
7-day average
1,041

These are days with a reporting anomaly.

Source: State and local health agencies. Daily cases are the number of new cases reported each day. The seven-day average is the average of the most recent seven days of data.

Still, the number announced on Saturday, which reflected test results from Friday, may not be the highest of the pandemic because a number of virus cases went unreported early last year when testing was not widely available.

Cases, however, have been rising for weeks in New York, prompting some to cancel holiday plans and rush to get tested.

State officials said the test positivity rate was 7.53 percent, up from about 2.6 percent on Sept. 22. Officials said that 3,909 people were hospitalized on Friday, a net increase of 70 patients.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Saturday that 40 new pop-up vaccination sites would open across the state, as part of an effort to get New Yorkers fully vaccinated and boosted, which epidemiologists consider critical to protecting people from severe disease and death.

“This is not like the beginning of the pandemic,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement. “We are prepared for the winter surge because we have the tools at our disposal. Getting vaccinated, getting the booster and wearing a mask are critical to avoiding getting seriously ill from Covid-19, so don’t take a chance.”

Covid patients in hospitals and I.C.U.s
Early data may be incomplete.
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
5,000
10,000 hospitalized
Hospitalized
In I.C.U.s
0
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.

The largest increase in New York State has been in Tompkins County, which includes Ithaca. Cases have increased by more than 640 percent there over the last 14 days, according to a New York Times database. An average of 224 people per 100,000 were infected with the coronavirus in Tompkins County, compared with about 61 per 100,000 in New York City, according to the database.

The county is home to a large student population. On Wednesday, Ithaca College said that it had experienced “a notable spike” in cases over the previous 24 hours and was strongly discouraging students from participating in “unstructured off-campus gatherings.”

On Tuesday, Cornell University canceled a ceremony for December graduates, closed libraries and took other restrictive measures after the school’s coronavirus testing lab found evidence of the Omicron variant in a number of students’ test specimens.

Earlier this week, in an effort to curb the virus’s spread as many people travel for the holidays and spend more time indoors, Ms. Hochul imposed a statewide mandate requiring that masks be worn in all indoor public spaces that do not require proof of full vaccination for entry.

Biden will address the nation about Omicron on Tuesday as cases rise.

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President Biden delivering remarks on the pandemic in January with Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator. He is planning to address the nation about the Omicron variant on Tuesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden will address the nation on Tuesday to respond to the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has sent infections soaring in parts of the country and raised new fears of the health of the country and its economy in the months to come.

Mr. Biden “will announce new steps the Administration is taking to help communities in need of assistance,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, wrote on Twitter on Saturday, “while also issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated.”

“We are prepared for the rising case levels,” she wrote in a follow-up Twitter post, and Mr. Biden “will detail how we will respond to this challenge. He will remind Americans that they can protect themselves from severe illness from COVID-19 by getting vaccinated and getting their booster shot when they are eligible.”

The remarks will come as administration officials have faced new questions about how they will respond to the challenges of a pandemic that has persisted well beyond the administration’s expectations. Vice President Kamala Harris drew criticism this weekend for telling The Los Angeles Times in an interview that the administration was blindsided by the new variant and the one that preceded it, Delta, which drove spikes in infections and deaths from the virus this fall.

“We didn’t see Delta coming,” Ms. Harris told the newspaper. “I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see Delta coming. We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”

Mr. Biden has both sounded an alarm over Omicron this month while also counseling hope in the face of it, expressing optimism that the fast-spreading variant would not set back the progress the country has made to regain a sense of normalcy in recent months.

After initially imposing a set of travel restrictions on certain countries, including South Africa, where the variant was first detected, Mr. Biden’s response to the variant has leaned heavily on imploring Americans to get vaccinated, including booster shots.

For the unvaccinated, the president said on Thursday, “we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. But there’s good news: If you’re vaccinated and you had your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death — period.”

Ms. Psaki has fielded repeated questions in recent weeks over whether administration officials had revised their economic forecasts to account for Omicron. On Friday, she told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to South Carolina that federal surge teams were helping communities handle a surge in cases in hard-hit states like Colorado, Michigan and Vermont.

“There’s not a new assessment that they have provided or new recommendations that they have provided to date” on the economic effects of those caseload increases, she said. “But that’s obviously a conversation that’s happening internally, as we look at not just the new variant, but any cases of — any surges that we’re seeing in communities across the country. And, of course, we’ll continue to assess any new steps that need to be taken.”

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Omicron leaves ‘S.N.L.’ without an audience and a musical guest.

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A “Saturday Night Live” promotional clip released Thursday featured Paul Rudd, the host, with the English pop star Charli XCX, left, who decided Saturday not to appear. At right is the cast member Ego Nwodim.Credit...NBC

“Saturday Night Live” announced, just hours before showtime, that there would be no live audience on Saturday night “out of an abundance of caution” amid the surge of coronavirus cases in New York tied to the Omicron variant.

The show also wrote on Twitter that there would be “limited cast and crew,” but it did not say whether any of the cast members had tested positive for the virus.

“The show continues to follow all government safety guidelines in addition to a rigorous testing protocol,” it said, adding that those who had tickets to the taping at Rockefeller Center “would be getting more information soon.”

A person familiar with plans for the show said that some cast and crew either had tested positive or had been in close contact with people who had.

Saturday’s show, the last of 2021, was hosted by the actor Paul Rudd — his fifth time, which was the focus of the subdued opening. Tom Hanks, the Academy Award-winning star of “Forrest Gump,” took the stage and explained that though they had planned a special Christmas show, “Covid came early this year, so in the interest of safety, we do not have an audience and we sent home our cast and most of our crew.”

Tina Fey, a former cast member, and Kenan Thompson, a current cast member, then joined him to induct Mr. Rudd into the so-called Five-Timers Club for hosts. They closed the opening by explaining that the impromptu show would consist of new sketches taped earlier in the week and personal favorites from previous episodes.

Mr. Rudd joked, “It’s going to be a little bit like that new Beatles documentary — a lot of old footage but enough new stuff that you’re like, ‘OK, yeah, I’ll watch that.’ ”

The show was supposed to have included a musical performance by the English pop artist Charli XCX. She ended up canceling, explaining that she could not perform with so few crew members. “I am devastated and heartbroken,” she said in a statement of her own, adding: “It can’t happen this time but I’ll be back! I am currently safe and healthy but of course very sad.”

“Please look after yourselves out there and make sure you get vaccinated if you haven’t already,” she continued.

NBC declined to comment beyond the show’s statement.

“S.N.L.” normally tapes a dress rehearsal at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, and then the live performance airs at 11:30 p.m.

Mr. Rudd closed the show by thanking the cast and crew for working so hard under stressful circumstances.

“I know it wasn’t the Christmas show you expected, but that’s the beauty of this place. Like life, it’s unpredictable,” he said, as he and four others onstage wore face masks.

He finished by cracking a joke at Mr. Hanks’s expense. “As my good friend Tom Hanks once said in a movie, life’s like a big, weird chocolate bar: sometimes it’s delicious; other sometimes it’s got that orange cream filling in it,” he said. “And it’s like, OK, it’s not what I would have chosen, but it’s better than nothing.”

A Washington State senator died at 52 after a Covid infection.

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State Senator Doug Ericksen in 2017. He represented Whatcom County in the northwestern corner of Washington State.Credit...Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

State Senator Doug Ericksen, a Republican who had led efforts to oppose Washington State’s Covid-19 emergency orders and vaccine mandates, has died after his own battle with the illness. He was 52.

Last month, Mr. Ericksen wrote to his Republican colleagues in the Legislature, telling them he had tested positive for the coronavirus after traveling to El Salvador. He asked colleagues for help in getting monoclonal antibodies.

It’s unclear where Mr. Ericksen was when he died. Mr. Ericksen’s family said in a statement on Saturday that he passed away the day before.

“Please keep our family in your prayers and thank you for continuing to respect our privacy in this extremely difficult time,” the family wrote in a statement shared by the State Senate’s Republican caucus.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
10,000
20,000 cases
7-day average
537
Source: State and local health agencies. Daily cases are the number of new cases reported each day. The seven-day average is the average of the most recent seven days of data.

Mr. Ericksen, who represented much of Whatcom County, had served in the Legislature since 1999, becoming a prominent conservative voice and an early backer of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign. Over the pandemic, he led efforts to combat Gov. Jay Inslee’s coronavirus restrictions, introducing legislation that would have prohibited vaccine mandates and calling for the governor to resign.

“Washington State is No. 1 in government coercion,” Mr. Ericksen said in a statement last month.

It’s unclear whether Mr. Ericksen had been vaccinated.

State Senator Reuven Carlyle, a Democrat, wrote in a message on Saturday that he and Mr. Ericksen had attended the same high school and then had served together for years as leaders on the State Senate committee focused on environmental, energy and technology issues.

“Our policy battles were tough and difficult, but we respected one another’s fierce devotion to serving the public and our communities,” Mr. Carlyle wrote. “Our friendship found ways to rise above political differences.”

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Some Southeast Asian tourism spots reopen, but arrivals are down from millions to dozens.

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A tourist on the beach in Bali this month. Just 45 visitors from overseas have come to the island in Indonesia this year.Credit...Made Nagi/EPA, via Shutterstock

Indonesia reopened the island of Bali to fully vaccinated tourists from 19 countries in October. But only two foreign nationals arrived that month — both by sea — and its airport is not yet receiving international flights.

Bali, one of the world’s most popular destinations, is among several tourism hot spots in Southeast Asia that have reopened — technically, at least — to international visitors in recent weeks. For local hotels, tour operators and other businesses whose income was obliterated during the early part of the pandemic, the news originally brought a smidgen of hope that 2021 might end on a positive note.

New reported cases by day
Apr. 2020
Oct.
Apr. 2021
Oct.
Apr. 2022
Oct.
20,000
40,000 cases
7-day average
236
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

But traveling to these destinations from other countries is such an undertaking — amid rules, fees, a lack of flights and lingering uncertainty around new outbreaks — that very few people have bothered.

“For all but the most determined, it’s a pretty convoluted process to plan a short holiday,” Stuart McDonald, a co-founder of Travelfish.org, a guide to Southeast Asia, said of international travelers who want to vacation in the region.

Bali, where tourism accounted for more than half of the prepandemic economy, had more than six million international arrivals in 2019. But so far this year, the figure is just 45, said Dayu Indah, the head of the marketing division at the island’s official tourism office. All of those travelers arrived by sea at Benoa Port, down the road from the international airport.

Recent arrival numbers at other Southeast Asian tourist hot spots are not quite as extreme, but they are still miserable by prepandemic standards.

In Malaysia, only a few hundred foreign tourists have visited the resort island of Langkawi since the government partially opened it to visitors this fall — far fewer than the thousands that a local development authority had anticipated.

In Thailand, more than 100,000 foreign visitors arrived in November as part of a quarantine-free entry program for fully vaccinated tourists from dozens of countries. But the country’s total arrival figure for the year — less than 270,000 — is still a tiny fraction of the 40 million who came in 2019.

In Vietnam, foreign tourists began trickling in by the dozens under pilot programs in November, but such numbers are nowhere near the 1.8 million international arrivals that the country recorded in November 2019, according to official data. The programs were started before the Omicron variant was discovered and the country’s case numbers hit a new high.

Part of the problem for Southeast Asia’s tourism industry is that China, a major source of visitors, has imposed so many restrictions on its citizens who travel overseas — including a 14-day quarantine when they return — that very few of them are leaving.

Another problem is a lack of direct flights. Cambodia, for example, reopened to international travelers last month and has waived quarantine for those who are fully vaccinated and submit to testing. But most travelers from outside Asia who want to visit the country would need to transit through aviation hubs elsewhere in the region, such as Malaysia, Mr. McDonald said. That means additional Covid screenings.

“It’s just too complicated,” he said. “You get stuck in quarantine and you test positive. Who wants to have a holiday like that?”

As for Bali, the reasons not to visit include not only a lack of direct international flights, but also Indonesia’s 10-day quarantine for fully vaccinated people and the paperwork required to secure a business visa. (Tourist visas have been suspended.)

Ms. Indah said that Bali’s focus for now was on domestic tourists, and that 12,000 of them arrived by air last weekend.

With variant spreading ‘at lightning speed’ in Europe, the Netherlands locks down.

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Dutch leaders ordered all nonessential shops, bars, restaurants, gyms, schools, and cultural and outdoor-sports venues to close from Sunday until at least mid-January.CreditCredit...Peter Dejong/Associated Press

Nations across Europe have been tightening restrictions to prevent the spread from the Omicron variant, and on Saturday, the Netherlands became the first European country to announce a full lockdown to fight the variant.

Dutch leaders ordered the closing of all nonessential shops, bars, restaurants, gyms, outdoor sports, cultural venues and schools from Sunday until mid-January.

New reported cases by day
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
50,000
100,000 cases
7-day average
546
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

“It’s terrible,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte acknowledged Saturday at a televised news conference. “This is terrible for everyone, especially on the eve of the holidays.”

Mr. Rutte said that a fifth wave of the virus was inevitable because of Omicron. “We have to act now to prevent a worst-case scenario,” he said. “Without measures, we could be witnessing an uncontrollable situation at the start of January.”

The Netherlands, normally a well-organized country, has struggled more than many other wealthy nations to control the virus, and its booster campaign has been relatively slow.

The health minister, Hugo de Jonge, said that efforts to mass-administer booster shots would be drastically increased. “We need this to buy time in order to find out how sick the Omicron variant can make us,” he said. Researchers are racing to determine whether the variant might have more or less virulence than earlier versions.

Official measures against the virus have not always fared well among the Dutch. Anger over the country’s partial lockdown and other restrictions set off unruly and sometimes violent protests last month and in January in several cities.

Other European countries have also taken action as they detect Omicron in an increasing number of case samples. Some have tightened travel restrictions, while others have closed public venues and canceled holiday celebrations.

Austria announced tougher entry restrictions for travelers without booster shots. Germany’s regional health ministers are pushing for stricter rules for arrivals from Britain. And in Denmark, one of the first countries in Europe to see a surge of the variant, theaters, concert halls and amusement parks have been closed.

With the Omicron variant “spreading at lightning speed” in Europe, it will probably become dominant in France by the start of next year, the French prime minister, Jean Castex, has warned.

Ireland imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on pubs and bars starting Monday, among other new restrictions. Prime Minister Micheál Martin addressed the nation on Friday night. “None of this is easy,” the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. “We are all exhausted with Covid and the restrictions it requires. The twists and turns, the disappointments and the frustrations take a heavy toll on everyone. But it is the reality that we are dealing with.”

All countries are looking toward Britain, which has so far been hardest hit in the region, with a total of nearly 25,000 confirmed Omicron cases as of Saturday. Britain reported 90,418 new coronavirus cases on Saturday — down from a record of just over 93,000 on Friday.

Compared with the previous week, cases in Britain were up 44.4 percent. Deaths, which typically lag changes in case numbers, were down by nearly 6 percent over the same period.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in 89 countries, with its case numbers doubling every 1.5 to three days in places with community transmission (not just infections acquired abroad), the World Health Organization has said.

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London, with Britain’s largest surge, goes on emergency footing against Omicron.

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London Declares a ‘Major Incident’ as Omicron Surges

The declaration, which indicated that emergency services and hospitals could not guarantee their normal level of response, came as London faced a steep rise in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant.

I’ve been meeting over the last few days on a daily basis with colleagues across the city, from the N.H.S. to councils, from the fire service to the police. We’re incredibly concerned by the huge surge in the Omicron variant. Over the last 24 hours, we’ve had the largest number of new cases since this pandemic began, more than 26,000. Hospital admissions are going up, but also staff absences are going up by a massive level. So I’ve taken the decision in consultation with our partners to declare a major incident today. It’s really important Londoners understand how serious things are. The best thing Londoners can do is to get both vaccines and the booster. They provide extra layers of protection. The really bad news is those in hospital, the vast, vast majority are unvaccinated. That’s why it’s so important to get both the vaccines and the booster jab.

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The declaration, which indicated that emergency services and hospitals could not guarantee their normal level of response, came as London faced a steep rise in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant.CreditCredit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

With hospitalizations and a rapid rise in new coronavirus cases being driven by a surge of the Omicron variant, London’s mayor on Saturday declared a “major incident” — or emergency — for the first time since January.

The declaration sets up special coordination procedures and indicates that emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
50,000
100,000
150,000 cases
7-day average
4,111
Source: Data for the United Kingdom comes from the Department for Health and Social Care, Public Health England, Public Health Scotland, Public Health Wales, Public Health Agency of Northern Ireland and the Chief Medical Officer Directorate. Population data from U.K. Data Service Census Support. The Office for National Statistics also produces a weekly report on the number of deaths that mention Covid-19 on a death certificate. This figure, which includes deaths outside of hospitals, is many thousands of deaths higher than the reported daily death toll. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

The move came as the number of patients in London hospitals increased 29 percent over the last week. The city has confirmed 65,525 new cases in the last week and 26,418 cases in the last day, the highest number since the start of the pandemic, Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office said in a statement on Saturday. The Greater London area has seen cases rise by nearly 200 percent over the last two weeks, making it the hardest hit area of Britain.

“It’s really important that Londoners understand how serious things are,” Mr. Khan said in a video posted by The Telegraph. “The best thing Londoners can do is get both vaccines and the booster. They provide extra layers of protection.”

The “really bad news,” he added, was that “the vast, vast majority” of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.

British health officials warned this week that the Omicron variant was doubling at a rate of less than every two days in parts of the country. While the effect on hospitalizations and mortality rates remained unclear, the National Health Service was likely to face a deluge of patients because of the explosive growth in cases, Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said this week.

“It is moving at an absolutely phenomenal pace,” he said.

Countries around Europe are clamping down to push back against the spread of the Omicron variant. The Netherlands announced a full lockdown, Denmark closed theaters and concert halls, and Ireland instituted an 8 p.m. curfew for pubs.

In Britain, the surge of the virus has put intense pressure on political officials. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been under fire in recent weeks after reports that his staff held holiday gatherings at Downing Street last year at a time when the government was instructing people not to meet with friends and family.

In London, Mr. Khan is trying to overcome vaccine hesitancy. On Saturday, he visited a mass-vaccination pop-up clinic and announced a series of virtual events to encourage Londoners to get vaccinated.

The mayor’s office said that London’s Black and Asian communities, along with low-income residents, had been hurt disproportionately by the pandemic. These communities, Black Londoners in particular, the office said, had also been targeted by vaccine misinformation.

More than 2.5 million booster doses have been given in London, but more than a million eligible residents have yet to receive a single dose, the mayor’s office said.

Mr. Khan last declared a major incident in January when a peak in Covid-19 cases was taking a toll on the N.H.S. He also made the same declaration for a tram derailment in 2016, the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and a terrorist attack near London Bridge in 2019.

Harvard is going remote as other universities grapple with the Omicron variant, too.

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Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., said it would operate remotely for the first three weeks of January to counter a virus surge. Credit...Charles Krupa/Associated Press

Harvard University said on Saturday that it will move to a remote environment the first three weeks of January because of surging Covid-19 cases and the growing presence of the Omicron variant.

Many colleges in recent days have moved final exams, canceled graduation ceremonies or shifted parts of their operations online because of fears of the highly transmissible variant.

Middlebury College in Vermont moved to remote instruction for the rest of the semester. DePaul University in Chicago and Southern New Hampshire University each said this month that they would switch to all remote instruction, at least for a time, when classes resume in January. Cornell University canceled a ceremony for December graduates and closed libraries.

Harvard has had 344 new Covid-19 cases in the last week and a test positivity rate of 0.83 percent, according to the university’s testing dashboard. That’s a low positivity rate, but new cases have rarely exceeded 100 per week until December, and the surge in positive cases in the last week was not the product of more testing, which remained roughly the same, according to the dashboard.

“Public health experts anticipate the increase in COVID-19 cases to continue, driven by the Omicron variant, which we have now confirmed is already present in our campus community,” President Lawrence S. Bacow and other university leaders wrote in a message posted on the university’s website.

“The Omicron variant is expected to become the dominant variant across the country in the coming weeks, potentially peaking in the first few weeks of January.”

The statement added that officials are planning a return to more robust activities on the Cambridge, Mass., campus later in January if public health conditions permit. Spring classes are scheduled to begin Jan. 24.

The latest virus surge presents colleges with a dilemma they have become familiar with over the last two years of shutdowns and restarts. As gathering spots for thousands of students, faculty and staff, they can be natural vectors for virus spread. But moving operations online also comes with a price, as remote education has contributed to a mental-health toll on isolated students, especially those who don’t have robust support systems.

Like many colleges, Harvard has required all eligible students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated. On Thursday, the university announced that it would also require them to have booster shots for the spring semester. Harvard’s peer institutions, including Brown University and Princeton University, have also announced booster requirements.

Though the latest virus surge has echoes to previous ones, the way colleges and universities are responding shouldn’t be the same now, said Michael Mina, a former Harvard epidemiologist who urged President Bacow to not reopen the campus after spring break in 2020 as the pandemic first took hold in the United States.

Now there are treatments and vaccines, and colleges have mandated them, Mr. Mina said. There is also knowledge that students are generally at low risk of serious disease or death. That should weigh into the calculation about whether a move to remote education is necessary, he said.

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Two more who traveled with Blinken test positive, the Air Force says.

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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken last month. He had to cut a trip short while in Southeast Asia after a journalist traveling in his delegation tested positive for the coronavirus.Credit...Toms Kalnins/EPA, via Shutterstock

Two U.S. Air Force aircrew members supporting Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s international travel last week tested positive for the coronavirus, the Air Force confirmed on Saturday.

Mr. Blinken cut short his trip to Southeast Asia on Wednesday after a journalist traveling in his delegation tested positive. Both aircrew members who tested positive were fully vaccinated, and neither had come into close contact with the secretary of state or senior staff, according to Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the department.

“One aircrew member is asymptomatic, while the other is experiencing mild symptoms,” Ms. Stefanek said.

A State Department spokesman said earlier this week that Mr. Blinken had tested negative at every stop on diplomatic visits to Britain, Indonesia and Malaysia. He ended up canceling meetings scheduled for Thursday with senior officials in Bangkok, the Thai capital, and returned to the United States.

Here’s how to use rapid home tests (once you find one).

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Irma Mazzoni handing out free rapid at-home Covid-19 test kits in Chelsea, Mass., on Friday, as part of a statewide effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus over the holidays.Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has added even more uncertainty about how to navigate life after vaccination. Is it safe to gather unmasked with my vaccinated friends? Can I travel for the holidays? Can my children safely see their grandparents?

But rapid home testing can lower risk, ease worry and allow you to spend time with the people you care about.

Testing isn’t a substitute for being vaccinated or getting a booster shot. But at-home rapid tests can tell people within minutes whether they are contagious with Covid-19. It gives added assurance that no one at a child’s birthday party, a wedding or a family holiday gathering is spreading the virus. If you’ve been traveling through airports, it’s a good idea to take a few rapid tests, days apart, to make sure you didn’t contract the virus during your travels.

One big problem is that the tests can be hard to find. The nation’s coronavirus testing capacity is facing enormous new pressure, with holiday travelers waiting in long lines to be tested, overworked laboratories struggling to keep up and rapid at-home diagnostics flying off pharmacy shelves as the Omicron variant fuels a rapid spike in Covid-19 cases.

The Biden administration has promised an investment of $1 billion in home testing. Many stores and websites do still have tests in stock, but it may require some effort to find them. The administration has said that starting in December, an estimated 200 million rapid tests should be available to Americans each month.

No test is a 100 percent guarantee, but given that your vaccine and booster already protect you, a home test is another layer of precaution to lower risk. Unvaccinated people can benefit from using home tests as well, but they should not rely on testing as a substitute for a vaccine.

Home tests are particularly useful for families with young children who aren’t yet eligible for vaccination and for anyone with an at-risk family member. When my vaccinated daughter wanted to visit her 80-year-old vaccinated grandmother in New Mexico, she was tested in New York before leaving, and she carried several rapid home tests to use when she landed and every day of the short visit.

“Testing is an information business, and that information is liberating,” said Mara Aspinall, an expert in biomedical diagnostics at Arizona State University who is also on the board of OraSure, which makes rapid Covid tests. “For some, it’s going to be to not wear a mask at an event. For some, it’s going to be to go visit great grandma or interact with the public. If your test is positive, it means you’ve got the power to protect yourself and other people.”

In the United States, a boxed set of two tests can range from $14 to $24, making them too expensive for most people to use frequently. But home tests can still be a helpful way to lower the risk of indoor gatherings and spending time with extended family members.

“I think people should embrace home testing more,” said Neeraj Sood, a professor and vice dean for research at the University of Southern California and director of the Covid Initiative at the U.S.C. Schaeffer Center. “I’m planning to go to India. I’ll do the home test the moment I land to make sure I’m not infectious before I give a hug to my father.”

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A day after the Nets announced Kyrie Irving’s return, the star guard ran into Covid rules.

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Kyrie Irving attending a college basketball game this month in Newark. He has sat out the Brooklyn Nets’ season because of his refusal to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.Credit...Adam Hunger/Associated Press

On Friday evening, the Nets announced they would allow Kyrie Irving, the star guard whom they barred from the team until he received a Covid vaccination, to rejoin the team part time. By Saturday afternoon, that plan was on hold: Irving, who remains unvaccinated, has entered the league’s health and safety protocols, part of a leaguewide spike in such cases.

Irving is just the latest Nets star on the team’s growing list of absences. Earlier Saturday, the Nets confirmed that the star forward Kevin Durant had also entered the protocols and would miss Saturday’s game against the Orlando Magic in Brooklyn. Durant and Irving became the eighth and ninth Nets players declared ineligible to play for virus-related reasons, a growing list of absences that has left the team in danger of not having enough players to compete.

Earlier, the Nets had said only that Durant would not play because of an ankle injury. On Saturday, they announced he had entered the virus protocols.

According to the league’s health and safety rules, Durant, who is vaccinated, can return after he records two negative tests at least 24 hours apart. Irving, because he is unvaccinated, faces much stricter rules before he is even allowed to return to practice.

The resurgence of the virus has caused havoc across the N.B.A., as well as other professional sports leagues. On Saturday, the National Hockey League announced that neither the Boston Bruins nor the Nashville Predators would play for at least a week, and that games this weekend involving the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks would be postponed.

The U.S. Labor Department extends its deadline for large companies to mandate vaccines.

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A Covid-19 vaccination clinic in Washington, D.C., this month.Credit...Samuel Corum/Getty Images

The Labor Departmenthas delayed until Feb. 9 the deadline for full enforcement of its rule requiring large companies to have their workers get coronavirus vaccines or be tested weekly, after weeks of legal battles created uncertainty and confusion for employers.

The department’s move came Saturday, a day after a federal appeals panel reinstated the Biden administration's rule requiring that companies with at least 100 employees mandate their workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face weekly testing by Jan. 4. The rule had also mandated that those employers require masks for unvaccinated workers by Dec. 5.

The decision on Friday, by a split three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, overturned a ruling by its counterpart in New Orleans, the Fifth Circuit, that had blocked the rule last month.

The government had argued that its vaccine mandate was well within the authority of the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, to pass an emergency temporary standard, so long as it could show that workers were exposed to a “grave danger” and that the rule was necessary.

Several of the many plaintiffs who have challenged that rule immediately asked the Supreme Court to intervene as part of its “emergency” docket. Appeals from the Sixth Circuit are assigned to be reviewed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who under Supreme Court rules can, in theory, make a decision on his own but is more likely to refer the matter to the full Supreme Court for consideration.

The Labor Department said in a statement on Saturday that it would “not issue citations for noncompliance” with any requirements of the rule before Jan. 10. It said it would not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before Feb. 9, “so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard.”

While the Biden administration has encouraged companies to move forward with carrying out the rule despite the legal uncertainty, many have held off until the matter has been fully addressed by the court. Trade groups, including the National Retail Federation, have pushed for a delay in the requirements.

Companies that fail to comply with the rule may be fined. An OSHA penalty is typically $13,653 for every serious violation, but can be up to 10 times that amount if OSHA determines that the violation is willful or repeated. OSHA has a whistle-blower system that allows workers to report violations of its rules, though labor lawyers said that it has historically tended to not have enough inspectors.

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Only one in six Americans have gotten boosters, leaving room for Omicron to spread.

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Allison Reeder, 57, helped her mother Donna Dillangham, 84, fill out a form before they got their Covid booster shots during a vaccination event on Thursday in Phoenix.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

As the pandemic surges toward its third year, shape-shifting into the contagious new Omicron variant and spiking dangerously in the Northeast, around the Great Lakes and in other parts of the country, health officials and epidemiologists are vehemently urging Americans to get vaccinated and boosted. But the going has been slow.

Of American adults who are fully vaccinated and eligible for a booster shot, only about 30 percent have received one, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And among all Americans, only about one in six has received a booster. On Friday, as New York City was racing to confront a precipitous surge in infections, city officials said only about 1.5 million New Yorkers out of more than 8 million had received booster shots.

Some states may be undercounting, but the lag is alarming because Omicron infections appear to evade regular one- or two-dose vaccinations. Vaccines still provide robust protection against death and severe illness, but when it comes to preventing the virus from getting a foothold in the first place, scientists increasingly believe that three shots are the new two shots.

Just over half of Americans 65 and older — the population most vulnerable to a severe outcome from the virus — have received a booster. And public health experts are concerned that socioeconomic disparities in vaccination rates will be exacerbated as booster shots roll out. Difficulty in taking time off work and disconnection from health care systems have contributed to a persistent gap in vaccination rates between the most and least socioeconomically vulnerable counties.

Widespread, lasting immunization is critical to controlling the virus, according to health officials. Every poorly protected lung is a safe harbor for Covid-19 to spread and mutate. And every surge further exhausts the nation’s already depleted health care system, consuming finite hospital staff, resources and attention that then cannot be used to treat people with other serious illnesses.

As Covid cases multiply across the U.S., mitigation measures are returning.

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A subway station in Midtown Manhattan on Friday. Masks are required on public transportation in New York and inside all public spaces that do not require vaccinations.Credit...Gabby Jones for The New York Times

Indoor mask mandates. Remote classes. Canceled Broadway shows.

Across the country, local governments and private institutions threatened by the spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus and the prospect of a holiday season surge have increasingly been putting in place pandemic measures that feel like a blast from the past.

The resurgence of policies used months ago and last year serve as a harsh reminder to Americans, young and old, that the anxieties of Covid-19 are far from over.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000 cases
7-day average
19,508

These are days with a reporting anomaly.

Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York emphasized that point this week when responding to her state’s one-day record for new cases, which topped 21,000 on Friday and then nearly reached 22,000 on Saturday.

The surge in cases “is a reminder that the pandemic is not over yet and we must take extra care to keep ourselves and each other safe,” the governor said on Friday. The spike in cases was one reason Governor Hochul ordered that masks be worn inside all public spaces that do not require vaccinations.

Universities are responding, too. On Saturday, Harvard, in response to a rise in positive cases, said that it would move to remote learning the first three weeks of January. Middlebury College in Vermont, DePaul University in Chicago and Southern New Hampshire University all announced similar moves this month, and Cornell canceled a ceremony for December graduates and closed libraries.

On Friday, after canceling all four of that day’s performances because of breakthrough cases within its ranks, the producers of the famed Christmas show starring the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall announced that they would end the show’s season entirely.

Broadway productions had to go dark at times, too, with a series of shows announcing cancellations recently because of Covid outbreaks, despite an industrywide vaccine mandate for audiences and workers.

Sports leagues have struggled with their schedules as well. The N.H.L. announced on Saturday that neither the Boston Bruins nor the Nashville Predators would play for at least a week, and that games this weekend involving the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks would be postponed.

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