CoronavirusCovid News: N.H.L. Is First League to Hit Pause Over Virus Surge

The N.H.L. paused its season ahead of a holiday break.

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The Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers warmed up in an empty arena in Montreal recently. Nearly four dozen N.H.L. games have been delayed this season.Credit...Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

The National Hockey League and its players’ association have agreed to pause play until next week because of the coronavirus, becoming the first North American professional sports league to suspend games en masse amid the rapid rise of the Omicron variant.

The league said on Monday night that it would delay five games that were not already affected by postponements and begin its scheduled holiday break early. It said two games set for Tuesday, however, would be allowed to go ahead.

About 12 hours later, though, the league announced one of those games — the Washington’s visit to Philadelphia — was off as well, because of “Covid-related issues” affecting the visitors.

Cases among N.H.L. players and their close contacts had already caused nearly four dozen games to be delayed this season. Earlier Monday, several teams, including the Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers, said they planned to shut down activities before the holiday break.

N.H.L. officials, announcing an agreement with the players’ association, said that teams would return to practice on Dec. 26 and that the league planned to resume its schedule on Dec. 27.

The suspensions and Tuesday’s postponement mean that 32 planned hockey games will not be played this week, though another game scheduled for Tuesday — Tampa Bay at Las Vegas — will still go ahead.

Several major sports leagues have postponed games and adjusted policies amid the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant. The N.H.L., which is considering whether to send players to the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February, on Sunday suspended travel between the United States and Canada for games, citing “the fluid nature of federal travel restrictions.” About 15 percent of the league’s 700-plus players were restricted by coronavirus protocols, The Associated Press reported on Monday.

On Sunday, the N.B.A. announced that it would postpone five games. Its players will be tested daily for two weeks starting Dec. 26.

England’s Premier League canceled nearly all of its soccer matches over the weekend because rosters were widely depleted by positive cases. The league said in a statement that it would keep its schedule “where safely possible,” even as players were urged to limit social contacts.

Some N.H.L. players, though eager to play in the Olympics for the first time since 2014, have expressed misgivings about the burdens of testing protocols and other rules at the Beijing Games.

The Swedish goalie Robin Lehner, who plays for the Vegas Golden Knights, said on Twitter that he would not be going to Beijing because of the stress of being locked down and not knowing what would happen if he tested positive.

“I’m very disappointed,” he said, adding that it had been a tough decision over a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Omicron accounts for nearly three-quarters of new U.S. cases.

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Omicron Surge Will Be a ‘Challenging Few Weeks,’ N.Y.C. Mayor Says

Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted the uptick in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant will last “a matter of weeks” if the city focused on vaccination and testing.

Omicron is a real challenge. It’s going to be a very challenging few weeks. But the good news is based on what our health care leadership understands at this moment, we are talking about a matter of weeks. But getting tested is absolutely crucial and making sure we have enough sites, enough resources, enough test kits. We’re working on all these fronts. And not a surprise, we’re finding the supplies are becoming a challenge because all over the country testing is going up suddenly, and we’re seeing a supply problem that needs to be addressed. And we’re working on that, working with the White House, working with the private sector to get more supplies. Another shutdown would have horrible, horrible impacts on the people of this city. But more importantly, it’s not necessary if we keep getting more and more people vaccinated, we keep ensuring that people get tested, we keep reinforcing our hospital system, which is doing very, very well. We don’t want to shut down. We want to vaccinate — simple as that.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted the uptick in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant will last “a matter of weeks” if the city focused on vaccination and testing.CreditCredit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

The extremely contagious Omicron variant is now the dominant version of new coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has prompted the resumption of mask mandates in some cities and states in the Northeast, where the growth in new cases has been particularly steep.

Omicron, first discovered overseas around Thanksgiving and identified in the U.S. on Dec. 1, now accounts for more than 70 percent of new U.S. cases, according to federal estimates released Monday.

The estimates underscored the rapid spread of the new variant. Two weeks ago, the C.D.C. said Omicron accounted for just 1 percent of U.S. cases; a week ago, it was about 13 percent. Delta, which for months had been the dominant form of the virus, accounted for about 26 percent of new cases over the last week, the C.D.C. estimated.

Omicron, discovered thanks to its distinctive combination of more than 50 mutations, has turned out to be highly transmissible — two to three times as likely to spread as Delta — and less susceptible to vaccines than other variants. Early cases raised hopes that it may cause milder disease than other variants, but scientists say more research is needed.

In New York, new cases have shot up more than 80 percent over two weeks. In Washington, D.C., where the mayor reinstated an indoor mask mandate on Monday, more than three times as many cases are being identified each day as at the start of December.

In Boston, where cases are also surging, Mayor Michelle Wu on Monday announced proof-of-vaccination requirements for certain indoor spaces like gyms and restaurants.

In a news conference on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said that the city must “move faster” in its response to the latest wave of new cases, but insisted that another lockdown “would have horrible impacts on the people of this city.”

New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, on Monday called the surge in new cases “a vertical increase” because “it is going straight up,” but she did not announce new restrictions. Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, appeared at her daily coronavirus briefing without the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary T. Bassett, who tested positive for coronavirus via a rapid test earlier in the day.

The tens of thousands of new cases in recent days have included prominent politicians and lawmakers, such as Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, and Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The surge is coming as many hospitals have reached capacity and governors in several states have mobilized the National Guard to help with hospital staffing shortages. As Covid-19 cases crowd into hospitals, leaders of health care facilities in multiple states have taken out newspaper ads begging local residents to get vaccinated.

“We need your help,” pleaded the leaders of several health care facilities in Ohio in a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. “We now have more Covid-19 patients in our hospitals than ever before.”

As has been the case throughout the pandemic, the situation has varied around the country, though the overall picture is growing worse by the day.

Some states are still struggling with the Delta variant, which had ravaged the South over the summer, while the Omicron variant seems to be driving the surge in the Northeast. Vaccinated people without booster shots are believed to be more vulnerable to infection by Omicron.

The six New England states — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont — have some of the highest vaccination rates in the country, but are nonetheless seeing a worrisome new spike in coronavirus cases.

Nearly 11,000 people in the New England states are now testing positive for coronavirus every day, according to a New York Times coronavirus tracker. Almost all of these states have also seen an uptick in the number of hospitalizations and deaths over the past two weeks.

Rhode Island, with one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, with 75 percent of people fully vaccinated, is also now the U.S. state with the highest recent average cases per capita, according to the database. Daily cases have increased more than 50 percent over the last two weeks.

In response, Gov. Dan McKee announced that indoor establishments will now require masks or proof of vaccination, starting on Monday. The state is also adding more vaccine test sites for people ahead of the holidays.

“Now is the time to act,” Mr. McKee said at a Dec. 15 news conference, after describing the current pressure on the state’s hospitals, health care industry and schools. “It is not a time to just sit and wait.”

Adeel Hassan contributed reporting.

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Biden was in close contact with a White House official who later tested positive.

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President Biden boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

President Biden was in close contact with a White House official who later tested positive for the coronavirus, the administration said on Monday.

The president came into contact with the official aboard Air Force One on Friday, spending about 30 minutes near that person during a trip from South Carolina to Pennsylvania, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. The official, who was vaccinated and had received a booster shot, began experiencing symptoms two days later and tested positive on Monday morning.

“The president is tested on a regular basis. As part of that regular testing, the president received an antigen test Sunday and tested negative,” Ms. Psaki said. “This morning, after being notified of the staffer’s positive test, the president received a P.C.R. test and tested negative.”

She added that Mr. Biden would be tested again on Wednesday, and that as a fully vaccinated person, he was not required to quarantine after exposure.

Administration officials acknowledge that as the highly contagious Omicron variant has surged, there have been cases in and around the White House, including the National Security Council, State Department and other agencies. At least one person who traveled with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on a trip abroad last week tested positive, causing Mr. Blinken to cut his trip short.

SpaceX reports 132 coronavirus cases at its headquarters in Southern California.

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The SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.Credit...Mike Blake/Reuters

Tuesday, Dec. 21: This article has been updated to reflect additional statements from L.A. County’s public health department and SpaceX.

At least 132 employees at SpaceX’s Southern California headquarters have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent months according to information on outbreaks of the virus posted on a Los Angeles County website. It is the highest number of cases currently reported among private companies in the county.

The cases were reported as a wave of infections spread through the country, driven mainly by the Omicron virus variant, and as the private space company founded and led by Elon Musk is conducting a rapid series of rocket launches at sites in California and Florida. However, SpaceX clarified that it does not currently have 132 infected employees on site.

About 6,000 employees at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., build and manufacture SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon capsules. The rockets are the dominant launch vehicle used by private companies and governments to put satellites in orbit, and the capsules are NASA’s primary vehicle for carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. The company’s mission control room, where engineers are frequently shown during live video streams of launches, seated behind computer monitors wearing masks, is also in Hawthorne.

Late on Monday, a spokesman from the Los Angeles County public health department clarified that the 132 infections were reported from July through November.

SpaceX broke a company record on Sunday for the quickest turnaround time between two missions, launching a Turkish satellite to space from Kennedy Space Center in Florida just 18 hours after launching 52 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites to orbit on Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Another mission from Florida is lifted off Tuesday morning, sending a cargo capsule full of supplies and research to the space station for NASA.

A SpaceX spokesman shared an email sent to employees Monday night that said the 132 positive cases had occurred since September. Some cases occurred that month after “several employees who work in the same area contracted COVID outside of work at a non-work-related event.” The company said that because it encouraged employees to be tested at SpaceX headquarters, the company reported positive cases to L.A. county’s public health department.

During an earlier phase of the pandemic, Mr. Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, balked at restrictions in California meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus. In May last year, Mr. Musk, also the chief executive of Tesla, the electric carmaker, defied a public health order by resuming production at the company’s Fremont factory despite county restrictions that would have prevented employees from working.

On the day after Thanksgiving this year, Mr. Musk stoked fears of bankruptcy for SpaceX in emails sent to employees, urging them to work through engineering challenges related to the development of Starship, the company’s next-generation rocket.

The pandemic has frequently disrupted spaceflight activities, costing NASA nearly $3 billion from delays, according to an internal report, and a European-Russian mission to Mars had to be postponed until 2022 early in 2020. Nonetheless, SpaceX has sustained its operations throughout the pandemic, including resuming astronaut launches from American soil in May 2020.

Mr. Musk himself tested positive for the virus in November 2020 and was precluded from attending a launch of four astronauts to space for NASA from the Kennedy Space Center.

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The Broadway production of ‘Hamilton’ cancels all performances this week.

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“Hamilton,” the top-grossing show on Broadway, cited breakthrough Covid-19 cases in its company as the reason for the cancellation. Sporadic cancellations are widespread, on Broadway and beyond. Credit...Carlo Allegri/Reuters

The Broadway production of “Hamilton” canceled all performances until after Christmas as a spike in coronavirus cases batters the performing arts throughout North America as well as in London.

The cancellations, prompted by positive coronavirus tests among casts or crew members, come at the worst possible time for many productions, because the holiday season is typically the most lucrative time of year.

On Saturday and Sunday, about a third of Broadway shows canceled their performances. And there were multiple Covid-prompted cancellations Off Broadway, as well as in Chicago, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and other cities.

On Monday, the producers for another Broadway show, “Jagged Little Pill,” a rock musical based on the songs of Alanis Morissette, announced it will permanently close. It opened in late 2019 and shut down with the rest of the industry in March 2020 during the early days of the pandemic. The show restarted in October but on Saturday it stopped performing, citing “a limited number of positive Covid test results.”

On Monday night, the producers of “Jagged” said it would not reopen.

“Hamilton,” a sold-out juggernaut that had been the top-grossing show on Broadway, cited breakthrough coronavirus cases in its company as the reason for the cancellation. The show has been dark since Dec. 15 — the matinee went on as scheduled that day, but the evening performance was scrapped — and the first possible next performance is on Dec. 27.

The show is the second major Broadway musical to cancel this entire week, following “MJ,” a new musical about Michael Jackson, still in previews, that on Dec. 17 canceled all performances until Dec. 27, citing “multiple positive Covid tests within the company.” Following the “Hamilton” cancellation, a third musical, “Aladdin,” announced that it would be closed through Christmas, and would seek to resume performances on Sunday.

The cancellations are now widespread, on Broadway and beyond. In most cases, producers say, the positive coronavirus tests are associated with mild or asymptomatic cases, but the performances are being canceled because there are not enough understudies or replacement workers to substitute for those who must miss the show.

New York’s health commissioner tests positive as Omicron surges.

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Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, right, with Dr. Mary Bassett, the state health commissioner, at a news briefing earlier this month.Credit...New York Office of the Governor, via Associated Press

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York began her coronavirus briefing on Monday by noting that the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, had tested positive for the virus.

The commissioner is vaccinated, boosted and feeling well, Ms. Hochul said, adding that the initial positive result from a rapid test would be confirmed by a P.C.R. test.

Ms. Hochul said that the number of new cases in New York on Monday was a record. She tempered the news about Ms. Bassett by saying that data from other countries were showing the Omicron variant was milder than its predecessor, the Delta variant. But, the governor added, New Yorkers should take precautions nonetheless.

“We have to take the steps now to make sure that everybody we love is with us for the next holiday season,” the governor said.

Ms. Hochul stressed that the state was in a considerably better position to meet the surge than it had been nearly two years ago, when the pandemic began, and didn’t anticipate any shutdowns. “This is not March 2020,” she said. “It’s not even December of 2020.”

Six million masks are on their way to county executives and hospital bed capacity is rising, with 28 hospitals barred from doing elective surgeries, as opposed to 32 several weeks ago. Currently, the state holds 7,000 ventilators in reserve, she said.

Ms. Hochul also announced that the state would distribute 10 million more free at-home tests in the coming weeks. Of those, officials pledged that one million will go to county emergency managers, 1.6 million will go to New York City, 400,000 will be distributed to vaccine sites, and two million will go to school districts.

The additional supplies are intended to help children remain in school, Ms. Hochul said. “We are keeping our schools open,” she said. “Let me repeat that. We are keeping our schools open.”

Over-the-counter tests have become increasingly scarce in the lead up to the holidays. Kathryn Garcia, the director of state operations, called on the federal government to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase the supply, promising a letter “out the door today.”

Officials also offered new details on the at-home testing portal, announced last week. New Yorkers will be able to request P.C.R. tests be delivered to their homes, along with prepaid return postage, said Jackie Bray, the commissioner of the State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Test results will be available within 48 hours, she said, promising additional details, including a start date, by the end of the week.

Finally, Ms. Hochul announced that $65 million would be available to assist counties in their efforts to enforce the state vaccine-or-mask mandate.

“I want to focus on the counties that are doing the right thing, that have been our allies in making sure that people are compliant with our protocols related to masks and vaccinations,” Ms. Hochul said.

At the event Ms. Hochul once again declined to penalize county executives who have refused to enforce the state’s mandate, citing, among other things, breaches of individual liberty and a lack of resources.

Instead, Ms. Hochul said she was focused on removing any impediments for counties seeking to comply.

“I have heard from a number of them that while they support what we’re doing with masks and vaccinations, they also need more resources to get this done,” Ms. Hochul said.

“I said, ‘OK, we’ve got them for you.’”

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Donald Trump said he got a booster shot and his supporters booed.

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Former President Donald J. Trump speaking to supporters in Phoenix in July.Credit...Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

Former President Donald J. Trump, who for years falsely claimed vaccines were dangerous and pointedly declined to be seen getting vaccinated against Covid-19 while in office, was booed at an event in Dallas after saying publicly for the first time that he had received a booster shot.

Mr. Trump was in Texas on Sunday as part of a speaking tour with Bill O’Reilly, the author and former Fox News host, when Mr. O’Reilly said that both he and Mr. Trump “are vaxxed.”

Mr. O’Reilly then asked, “Did you get the booster?”

“Yes,” Mr. Trump said.

“I got it too,” Mr. O’Reilly said.

The crowd began to boo, according to a video distributed by one of Mr. O’Reilly’s social media accounts.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” Mr. Trump said, waving his arm to dismiss the naysayers and downplaying the size of the reaction by pointing to what he said was “a very tiny group over there.”

The exchange comes as the rapidly spreading Omicron variant has fueled a sharp rise in new cases and hospitalizations, with several states mobilizing the National Guard to help with hospital staffing shortages. Omicron is now the dominant version of new coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Vaccinated people without booster shots are believed to be more vulnerable to infection by Omicron, and government officials nationwide say boosters are the best response to the new variant.

Just before the booing, Mr. Trump said that his supporters should get vaccinated because, he suggested, unwillingness to do so represented a victory for liberals. “What we’ve done is historic,” he said of the three Covid vaccines in use in the United States that were developed while he was in office. “Don’t let them take away, don’t take it away from ourselves. You’re playing right into their hands when you sort of like, ‘oh, the vaccine.’”

He then reiterated his opposition to vaccine mandates, which the Biden administration, localities across the country and many employers have embraced in order to boost vaccination rates. “You shouldn’t be forced to take it, no mandates. But take credit,” Mr. Trump said.

A correction was made on 
Dec. 21, 2021

An earlier version of this story misstated the town where Trump said he got his booster. He made the comment in Dallas, not Houston.

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Duke University joins a growing list of schools requiring booster shots for staff and students.

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The decision was prompted by detection of six cases of the Omicron variant in Durham County, N.C.Credit...Travis Dove for The New York Times

Duke University said Monday that it will require students, staff and faculty to receive booster doses of the coronavirus vaccine. The university, one of the first to announce a vaccine mandate last spring, joins a growing list of schools that have issued booster mandates as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly.

Wesleyan University in Connecticut was among the first to require boosters, making the announcement in late November. Others have followed, with larger institutions like the University of Michigan and Michigan State declaring mandates in recent days.

“It is vital that we take the necessary steps to keep our campus and community safe,” Duke leaders wrote in an email to campus. Effective immediately, “all students and employees to provide proof of receiving the COVID-19 booster shot in January or as soon as they are eligible.”

More than 20,000 faculty and staff and nearly 4,000 students at Duke have already received their booster shots, according to the university. But the total enrollment of graduate and undergraduate students at the school typically hovers around 16,000 each year.

“For those who have not already done so,” Duke leaders wrote, “we strongly encourage you to get your booster shot as soon as you are eligible.”

In a news conference, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper addressed the state’s rising cases — reporting over 10,500 new cases since Friday and 1,630 in the hospital with Covid-19. Dr. Mandy Cohen, the secretary health and human services in North Carolina, warned that the state “will likely set record high daily case numbers in the coming weeks.”

Omicron has already disrupted campus life around the Northeast and Upper Midwest, as prominent universities like N.Y.U., Cornell and Princeton have gone remote for the last few weeks of the semester.

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A cruise ship returns to Miami with 48 coronavirus cases.

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The Symphony of the Seas cruise ship docked at PortMiami in May.Credit...Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Dozens of passengers and crew members aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship tested positive for the coronavirus last week, according to the cruise line.

Royal Caribbean International said in a statement that the ship, the Symphony of the Seas, was carrying more than 6,000 guests and crew members when 48 people onboard tested positive.

The ship departed on Dec. 11 for a seven-night Caribbean cruise and returned to port in Miami on Saturday, the company said.

The cases were identified because of contact tracing after a guest tested positive, the cruise line said.

“Each person quickly went into quarantine,” the statement said. “Everyone who tested positive was asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and we continuously monitored their health.”

The cruise line said that the ship sailed with 95 percent of its guests aboard fully vaccinated and that 98 percent of the people who tested positive were fully vaccinated. It was not immediately clear whether any of the people who tested positive had received a booster shot of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Royal Caribbean requires travelers 12 and older to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and test negative before boarding the ship. Children who are not yet vaccinated must provide a negative P.C.R. test result before sailing and test negative at the terminal before boarding.

The company said that all its crew members were full vaccinated against Covid-19 and were tested weekly.

During the early days of the pandemic in 2020, outbreaks on cruise ships sickened hundreds of people and upended the tourism industry, as officials and companies struggled to keep crews and passengers safe.

For months, cruise ships were barred from sailing to many ports. Even after vaccinations became more widely available in the United States in April, allowing much of the travel industry to ramp up again, cruise ships remained docked in ports, costing the industry billions of dollars each month.

The cruise industry rebounded in the summer, with many companies reporting an increase in bookings and a better handle on Covid-19 protocols.

But a recent spike in coronavirus cases in parts of the United States and Europe and growing concerns over the Omicron variant may hinder that momentum.

This month, at least 17 coronavirus cases were identified on a Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship that docked in New Orleans, including a case of the new Omicron variant.

N.Y.P.D. officers are again told to mask up.

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A police officer wears a mask while working in October. The N.Y.P.D. issued new guidance on mask-wearing for its employees.Credit...Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

The New York Police Department issued new guidance late Sunday night requiring all employees to once again wear face masks indoors and outdoors when interacting with the public, whether they are vaccinated or not.

The guidance, sent out in an email, says that “regardless of vaccination status,” members of the Police Department are required to wear face coverings in communal office settings, in meetings, and both indoors and outdoors when interacting with the public.

Under an earlier policy issued this summer, fully vaccinated members of the force were permitted to remove their masks in certain situations, though all officers, regardless of vaccination status, were supposed to remain masked when interacting with the public.

The change comes as coronavirus cases skyrocket in the city and state amid the spread of the Omicron variant, just as the holiday season approaches.

The new mask policy is the latest shift in guidance for a department whose staff has bucked coronavirus protocols for nearly two years. N.Y.P.D. officers have been recorded refusing to wear masks and harassing people who tell them to put them on. They have repeatedly disregarded guidance for masking while interacting with the public.

Some of these incidents have occurred on public transit, where everyone, police officers included, has been required to wear a mask since last spring, regardless of vaccination status.

For the better part of the city’s vaccine rollout, the Police Department’s vaccination rate lagged significantly behind that of almost every other city agency. After City Hall announced a vaccine mandate for city employees this fall, the department’s vaccination rate rose to around 88 percent, according to a department spokesperson.

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European leaders weigh tougher measures as the Omicron surge threatens health systems.

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A Christmas market in central London. Credit...Tolga Akmen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Five days before a Christmas that many hoped would mark a return to normal, governments across Europe were instead considering new social restrictions and tougher rules to protect their health systems from another potentially devastating coronavirus wave.

In Britain, where new infections driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant have reached their highest levels of the pandemic, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday described an “extremely difficult” surge of hospitalizations in London and said he was “looking at all kinds of things to keep Omicron under control.”

In Germany, where experts warned that more health workers are testing positive and I.C.U.s and emergency rooms are reaching capacity, government leaders were scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss imposing stricter curbs on gatherings before New Year’s Eve.

“We should be careful about ruling anything out,” Hendrik Wüst, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, told the broadcaster ARD, adding: “The big New Year’s Eve parties won’t be able to take place this year.”

The rapid surge of Omicron, less than a month after it was first identified, has confronted European nations with the prospect of a second consecutive Christmas clouded by lockdown-like measures, travel bans and fears of rationed health care. Governments are rapidly accelerating booster shots as the scientific evidence accumulates that two vaccine doses are insufficient to stop infections.

Even though researchers still don’t know whether Omicron causes severe illness in most people, its rapid spread in Britain and Denmark — two countries with high vaccination rates and high levels of disease surveillance — has alarmed the continent.

Researchers in Denmark, where nearly 77 percent of people have had two vaccine doses, found last week that Omicron cases were doubling every two days, and that the variant was mostly infecting people who had been fully vaccinated. The tiny Scandinavian nation is now recording more than 9,000 new cases daily, one of the highest per-person infection rates in the world.

In Britain, the variant has become the dominant strain of the virus in London, where experts say cases are doubling every two days.

In London hospitals, the number of Covid patients rose by 30 percent last week, according to Chris Hopson, the chief of N.H.S. Providers, the membership organization for England’s National Health Service staff. Infections were also cutting into the number of health care providers; staff absences attributed to Covid-19 more than doubled last week, he added, forcing some health facilities to “postpone nonessential activity.”

Concerns over the effect on health systems are part of the reason that the Netherlands over the weekend announced a lockdown, even though the country’s new case totals have fallen from their late November peak, when most cases were of the Delta variant. On Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte ordered the closure of all but essential businesses until the second week of January and limited the number of guests allowed into people’s homes.

Acknowledging that the measures meant “another Christmas that is completely different from what we would like,” Mr. Rutte said that the lockdown was necessary to prevent “an unmanageable situation in hospitals.”

The Netherlands has less I.C.U. capacity than many wealthy European nations, with 6.7 beds per 100,000 people, compared with 19 in France and 14 in the United States, according to the Our World in Data Project at the University of Oxford. Officials say that occupancy rates at hospitals are already high, and experts warn that nurses are being stretched thin.

“The burnout is huge,” said Dr. Mark Seubert, a critical-care physician in the Netherlands. “You see more people leaving the health care sector than joining it.”

Claire Moses, Monika Pronczuk and Jasmina Nielsen contributed reporting.

Rafael Nadal tests positive after a tournament in Abu Dhabi.

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The tennis star is isolating at home in Spain.Credit...Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

Rafael Nadal, the Spanish tennis star, announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus in Spain on Monday after returning from an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi.

Nadal, a former No. 1 and one of the greatest players in the sport’s long history, shares the men’s record with 20 Grand Slam singles titles. But because he missed most of the second half of the 2021 season because of a chronic problem with his left foot, he played only 29 matches.

His positive test casts doubt on whether he will return to the circuit next month for the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of 2022.

“I am having some unpleasant moments but am counting on feeling better bit by bit,” he said in a post on Twitter in Spanish on Monday. He added: “As a consequence of the situation, I have to maintain total flexibility with my schedule, and I will analyze my options depending on how my situation evolves.”

Nadal said he had taken a P.C.R. test after returning to Spain from Abu Dhabi and was now confined to his home in Manacor on the Spanish island of Majorca. He said he had informed all those with whom he had been in close contact about his test result, including his wife, his sister, his father, his physical therapist and two of his coaches, Carlos Moyá and Marc López, according to El País, a Spanish newspaper.

The list of close contacts also presumably included Nadal’s two opponents in the Abu Dhabi exhibition: Andy Murray and Denis Shapovalov, both of whom defeated Nadal.

Juan Carlos, the former king of Spain, attended Nadal’s match with Murray on Friday and met on Saturday with Nadal and Moyá, according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

Nadal is the latest tennis star to contract the coronavirus. Top-ranked Novak Djokovic tested positive for it in 2020. Second-ranked Daniil Medvedev did so earlier this year, as did Carlos Alcaraz, Nadal’s talented 18-year-old Spanish compatriot, who was forced to miss the Davis Cup finals in Madrid this month.

Leading women who have tested positive include second-ranked Aryna Sabalenka; a former U.S. Open champion, Bianca Andreescu; and Coco Gauff, the rising American 17-year-old who was unvaccinated at the time of her positive test and had to withdraw from the Summer Olympics.

Unlike Djokovic, who has not revealed his vaccination status, Nadal has been an advocate for vaccinations and said he would comply with the coming Australian Open’s decision to require players to be vaccinated.

“If the people who really know about it say that we need to be vaccinated, who am I to create a different opinion?” he said in Abu Dhabi last week.

Nadal said on Monday that he had taken coronavirus tests “every two days” during his visit to Abu Dhabi and to Kuwait, where he has a tennis academy. “All the tests were negative,” Nadal said. “The last was on Friday, and we got the results on Saturday.”

Nadal, ranked No. 6 after his abbreviated 2021 season, had to withdraw from Wimbledon, the Summer Olympics and the U.S. Open this year because of Müller-Weiss disease, a congenital foot condition that first troubled him in his early 20s but which he has long been able to manage with custom insoles and therapy.

A correction was made on 
Dec. 20, 2021

An earlier version of this story misstated the name of Nadal’s wife. She is María Francisca, not Maribel. Maribel is his sister.

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Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland announces a positive coronavirus test result.

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Governor Larry Hogan speaks during President Joe Biden’s visit to Baltimore in November.Credit...Al Drago for The New York Times

Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland announced on Monday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, despite being fully vaccinated and having received a booster shot.

“This morning, as part of my regular testing routine, I received a positive rapid test for Covid-19,” Mr. Hogan, a Republican, wrote on Twitter. “I have been vaccinated and boosted, and I am feeling fine at the moment.”

Maryland is facing a surge of cases — with the seven-day average of hospitalizations rising to 1,474 as of Sunday, according to a New York Times database. That number is up 52 percent over the past two weeks, and led the governor to expand hospital capacity and limit elective surgeries. But Mr. Hogan reinforced late last week and on Sunday that he will not enforce any new lockdowns or mandates.

Appearing in studio with Bret Baier on the program “Fox News Sunday,” the governor said that the state is “trying to do everything we can” to get the remainder of the state vaccinated — save for more mandates. “We are not anticipating any lockdowns at all,” he said. “We are not considering them.”

But the state’s increase was troubling, Mr. Hogan said. And in light of his positive test, Mr. Hogan again encouraged residents to get vaccinated or schedule a booster dose as the Omicron variant gains dominance in the state.

A spokesperson for Fox News said the network is “following all Covid-19 protocols and procedures,” and said that Bret Baier will be anchoring his show from a remote studio following the exposure.

Mr. Hogan’s announcement follows a number of government officials, also fully vaccinated and boosted, who report that they have tested positive for the coronavirus. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey announced breakthrough infections via Twitter on Sunday, as did Representative Jason Crow of Colorado.

“Thankfully, I am only experiencing mild symptoms & am grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated & boosted,” Ms. Warren wrote on Twitter.

New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine moves all Christmas services online amid surge.

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A Holy Eucharist Service in July at the Cathedral Of St. John the Divine.Credit...Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a landmark house of worship in Manhattan and the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, said on Monday that it would move all of its religious services online.

“Today, the city, nation, and world are once again facing a coronavirus surge, this time driven by the newly emergent omicron variant,” Isadora Wilkenfeld, the director of Cathedral programming and communications, said in an email. “As the Cathedral has done before, placing the needs and concerns of the wider community first is crucial.”

The move makes the cathedral the first major house of worship in New York to cancel in-person services before Christmas, which is typically one of the most well-attended services of the year for most Christian denominations.

The decision applies to services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, its concert on New Year’s Eve, as well as regular weekday and weekend services “until further notice,” Ms. Wilkenfeld said.

Other denominations in New York have so far resisted making any significant changes to their holiday schedules.

Spokesmen for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn said they planned to make no changes to the Christmas schedule or to take further precautions than those they had been following.

Safety measures have included not making the sign of peace at Mass, not distributing communion wine, and keeping holy water fonts dry. Parish priests have also been instructed to inform parishioners that they are required to wear masks during Mass.

“These measures have been working and effective,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York. “There are no additional measures being put in place at this time.”

New York State has reported a growing number of new cases every day for the last three days, for a total of more than 60,000 new infections. On Sunday, it reported 22,478 new cases, although most appeared to be more mild than in the city’s brutal first wave.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat with less than a two weeks left in office, announced 5,731 new cases in New York City on Sunday. That is a significant increase from the rates in early November, when fewer than 1,000 cases were reported each day.

But Mr. de Blasio has not indicated so far that he will introduce the kind of public health restrictions that saw houses of worship shuttered entirely for months in 2020.

“Another shutdown would have horrible impacts on the people of this city,” he said at a televised news conference on Monday.

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Connecticut is starting a digital passport program for its residents.

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Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut in 2018. Credit...Monica Jorge for The New York Times

Connecticut is rolling out a digital passport program for state residents. The SMART Health Card, similar to New York’s Excelsior Pass, will let residents show their vaccination status.

The software, which was made available on the state’s website last week, can be downloaded in the form of a QR code onto a phone. While there are no state mandates requiring that businesses ask for proof of vaccination, some restaurants, theaters and other entertainment venues are doing so.

“The SMART Heath Card is purely optional and voluntary,” Gov. Ned Lamont said at a Monday news conference. “It’s an added convenience, and it’s secure.”

Mr. Lamont said neighboring states, including Massachusetts and Rhode Island, will also be introducing digital passports in the near future.

“It’ll make it easier for our restaurants, and stores, and businesses, just to give them an option of showing that you’re vaccinated, and that you’re safe,” Mr. Lamont said.

Connecticut, which has a 74 percent vaccination rate — one of the highest in the country, according to The New York Times’s coronavirus tracker — is dealing with a recent uptick in cases. More than 2,300 people are testing positive every day, a 137 percent increase over the last two weeks.

On Dec. 4, Connecticut reached another grim milestone: its first confirmed Covid-19 case with the new and highly contagious Omicron variant.

“It’s a little frustrating, I’ve got to admit,” Mr. Lamont said. “We were the most vaccinated, least infected state in the country, going back a couple of months. What happened? I thought vaccinations meant we were bulletproof? Well, not quite.”

Fox tightens its vaccine rule, removing a test-out option for N.Y.C. office workers.

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Fox News offices in Manhattan. The New York City vaccine mandate affects about 184,000 businesses.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

Fox Corporation, the owner of Fox News, told employees on Friday that those working in New York City would have to show proof they’d had at least one dose of the Covid vaccine by Dec. 27, removing the option to get tested weekly instead.

The new policy was in keeping with New York City’s vaccine rule, which Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in early December and which is more stringent than a contested Biden administration rule requiring vaccine mandates or weekly testing at larger employers.

The New York City mandate, which requires on-site workers at all businesses to be vaccinated, is the country’s most sweeping local vaccine mandate and affects some 184,000 businesses.

“Our policy reflects the guidelines of the mandate,” a spokesman for Fox Corporation said in an email on Monday. More than 90 percent of Fox’s employees are vaccinated, the company said.

New York is facing a surge of coronavirus cases. On Friday, the state reported 21,027 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day total since early in the pandemic, when testing was not as widely available.

New York’s mandate for workplaces requires that recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines receive a second dose, but the policy does not currently require booster shots.

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Novavax’s Covid vaccine is authorized in Europe.

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A health care worker administered a dose of the Novavax Covid vaccine during a Phase 3 trial at Howard University in Washington this year.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

The European Commission on Monday authorized a Covid-19 vaccine made by Novavax, making it the fifth vaccine available in the 27 nations of the European Union.

“At a time where the Omicron variant is rapidly spreading, and where we need to step up vaccination and the administration of boosters, I am particularly pleased with today’s authorization of the Novavax vaccine,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in a statement.

It’s not yet clear how well the vaccine, known as Nuvaxovid, will work against the contagious new Omicron variant. And there may not be much demand for the new vaccine in Europe, which is already flush with vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and other sources.

Novavax, based in Maryland, last year won $1.7 billion in support from the United States government to develop a vaccine made of proteins from the coronavirus. Despite the lavish support, Novavax lagged behind the vaccine developers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and struggled with its clinical trials and manufacturing.

Eventually, however, Novavax demonstrated that its vaccine could offer strong protection. In a final report published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine, company researchers found that Nuvaxovid was 90 percent effective against symptomatic infection with Covid-19 and 100 percent effective against moderate to severe disease.

Protein-based vaccines have been used for decades and generally have a strong track record of safety and mild side effects. Nuvaxovid’s side effects are usually mild or moderate and clear up within a couple days.

Novavax teamed up with the Serum Institute of India as a manufacturing partner, and in recent weeks the new vaccine has enjoyed a string of regulatory successes. Indonesia and the Philippines authorized the vaccine last month.

The World Health Organization last week granted to Nuvaxovid an emergency-use listing, a seal of approval that accelerates the adoption of vaccines in countries that cannot conduct large-scale reviews of their own.

Is that sniffle a cold? Or is it Covid?

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Waiting in line for Covid-19 testing in Brooklyn on Friday.Credit...Gabby Jones for The New York Times

The symptoms of the common cold are typically a stuffy head, the sniffles and body aches.

Now, this season, there’s a new one: panic.

As the latest coronavirus variant races through recently reopened offices, holiday parties and family gatherings, signs of an ailment that was once an annoying winter perennial eased with bed rest and chicken soup now set minds racing. In New York City, the slightest sniffle has people canceling holiday plans and packing coronavirus testing centers, where in recent days lines have stretched for blocks.

Is it a cold? Or is it Covid?

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The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is postponed.

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The World Economic Forum postponed its annual meeting set to begin on Jan. 17.Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The World Economic Forum said Monday that it was postponing its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, citing concerns over the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The cancellation of the event, which had been planned for Jan. 17-21, is one of the biggest disruptions caused by the new wave of coronavirus cases, and upends plans for the many world leaders and corporations that had planned to attend.

As recently as Thursday, the World Economic Forum had said it was proceeding with the event, which draws thousands of politicians, executives and nonprofit leaders to a ritzy ski town in the Swiss Alps for lectures, panel discussions, dinners and parties. Organizers had said they would make a decision about whether to proceed by Jan. 6.

But with Omicron cases surging worldwide, the meeting was “deferred” on Monday and tentatively rescheduled for the summer.

“Current pandemic conditions make it extremely difficult to deliver a global in-person meeting,” Adrian Monck, a spokesman for the event, said in an email announcing the cancellation. “Despite the meeting’s stringent health protocols, the transmissibility of Omicron and its impact on travel and mobility have made deferral necessary.”

The move suggests new uncertainties for business travel, yet another headache for chief executives, and raises the prospect that more major events could be canceled or postponed in the weeks ahead.

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