New York tourism gets another blow from Omicron

Monday, December 20, 2021

Just when New York City had announced in September about the return of Broadway with huge enthusiasm, adoring crowds, the tourism of the city is about to experience yet another blow.

The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus is raging in New York City and the State. On Friday, December 17th, positive cases have raised to the point where 21,027 new cases were reported statewide– the highest number in almost a full year.

This week, due to this, a handful of Broadway shows have shut down temporarily and the popular Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show called off the remainder of its performances at the peak of the holiday season. This was a major blow to the show as it still had two more weeks of performances with up to six shows per day.

“This is changing so quickly. The numbers are going up exponentially by day,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a Friday appearance on CNN, according to NBC News4 New York.

This new Omicron variant is more transmissible but less deadly and hospitalizations have not been that huge. However, the Delta variant, which raised its hideous head during the late summers, is still out there as well.

“We were already headed for a winter surge with delta, which is a very concerning thing in its own right,” Dr. Denis Nash, the executive director of the Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health at the City University of New York, told NBC News4. “But then you layer on top of that the new omicron variant, which is more transmissible from an infection standpoint.”

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