Decision on Times Square New Year's Eve event due this week

NEW YORK (AP) — The fate of the annual New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square will be decided this week.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday a decision will be made by Christmas on whether to hold the event as in previous years before the pandemic, now that the omicron variant is spreading rapidly through the city and officials are scrambling to increase testing capacity amid heightened demand.

Last year's New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square was a socially distanced affair, attended by small groups of essential workers. This November, de Blasio announced the event would come back "full strength" with a requirement that attendees show proof of vaccination and those unable to be vaccinated because of a disability show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.

De Blasio called omicron a "fast, temporary phenomenon" that is expected to surge in the next few weeks then likely dissipate. He noted that most city residents are vaccinated, making the recent outbreak more manageable than when COVID-19 first appeared in early spring 2020.

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