Within the last couple of weeks, a large number of major corporations, including Apple, Uber, Lyft, Meta, Ford, Capital One, DoorDash, Zillow, Twitter, Microsoft and Dropbox, have given up or pushed back indefinitely on requiring workers to return to their offices.

Omicron, according to politicians and the mass media, is becoming a surging threat. In addition to business offices closing, we’ve seen colleges, Broadway shows, concerts and sporting events canceled over what President Joe Biden is predicting to be a winter of “severe illness and death.”

In a déjà-vu moment, it seems that New York might once again become the epicenter of the virus outbreak. The city is currently averaging 2,900 cases every day. Long lines wrapped around the blocks of vaccination centers and CityMD locations. Schools across the United States are starting to implement remote learning, restaurants are closing and events with large crowds are being canceled. Saturday Night Live announced just hours before its final show of the year that it would not have a studio audience and would go on with “limited cast and crew.”

Harvard, Stanford, Pennsylvania State, Georgetown and other universities are pivoting to online learning or restarting strict requirements that were made in 2020. Public schools across the country are announcing shifts to remote learning as well, which may once again present problems for working mothers.

Forbes senior contributor Bruce Y. Lee wrote about the spreading variant, “Well, so much for those ‘Omicold’ claims about the Omicron variant. The Omicron variant of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is certainly not the same as the common cold. While the jury’s still out on how virulent the Omicron variant may be, this new variant is proving that it can hospitalize and kill people, which is not what the common cold does. Today, the U.K. Health Security Agency reported that there have already been seven deaths and 85 hospitalizations related to the Omicron variant in the U.K., as of December 16.”

CNN reported that New York “had the highest single day count of new Covid-19 cases with 21,027, according to data released Friday. New York’s data also revealed that positive Covid-19 cases in the state jumped 154% in less than a week.”

National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins said, “It’s clear that Omicron is an extremely contagious variant, that it doubles every two to four days.” A top advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was an indication of the omicron variant evading immunity in a way the virus never had before.

According to the New York Post, “Americans are increasingly done with mandates in the name of fighting [Covid-19]. After almost two years, most have gone back to their pre-pandemic lives and just won’t obey orders from the hysteria echo chamber. Consider Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent mask-or-vax mandate. More than 30 New York county executives have publicly refused to enforce it, using terms like ‘Gestapo tactics’ and ‘mask police.’” You may think it’s just the Republicans, but “the Democrats in charge of Nassau and Suffolk counties balked, too,” wrote the New York Post.

Source: Forbes