Wednesday was a wonderful day for COVID-19 news in New York City.
Cases went down by 10 percent on Tuesday alone, and were 41 percent lower than just two weeks ago, as the omicron variant exhibited the same church steeple–shaped trendline as observed previously in South Africa and Great Britain. Hospitalizations—the critical measure when it comes to evaluating the systemic stress of mass infection—have flattened, maybe peaked. New York Times resident pandemic reality-checker David Leonhardt wrote a Wednesday piece headlined "Omicron Is in Retreat." As the state's case numbers tumbled 75 percent off their omicron highs, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in her State of the State speech that "We hope to close the books on this winter surge soon."
