Omicron’s New Year’s cocktail: Sorrow, fear, hope for 2022
By JOHN LEICESTER and NICK PERRY
Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — Muted New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world ushered in the fourth calendar year framed by the global Covid-19 pandemic. In France, a doctor sighed when asked what 2022 might bring. He said medical workers were exhausted “because the waves come one after another.” In the United States, officials took a mixed approach to the year-end revelry as the omicron variant caused infections to soar. They were banning the audience from a countdown concert in Los Angeles, scaling it back in New York and going full speed ahead on the Las Vegas strip. More than 5 million people have died from the coronavirus worldwide.
