Well this isn't great, though the news itself, as we'll see, isn't 100% discouraging:

Almost exactly one month after Mayor Bill de Blasio triumphantly announced tens of thousands of fully vaccinated people could return to Times Square to celebrate New Year's Eve in person this year, the state saw its highest single-day reporting of new COVID infections.

The previous record, set 11 months ago on Jan. 14, crumbled when Gov. Kathy Hochul announced 21,027 new positive cases statewide Friday. The old record for most reported cases in a single day was 19,942, when reported hospitalizations were on the brink of 9,000. Now, the number of people admitted is down by more than half.

Got that? "The number of people admitted is down by more than half." That's great news. In fact, both hospitalizations and deaths appear to have decoupled from cases quite significantly—due likely to high combinations of vaccinations and naturally acquired immunity, as well as what appears to be the relative mildness of the omicron variant:

"The omicron symptoms have been very mild. The impact on those vaccinated has been clinically mild. It's not converting to admissions to the hospital, or deaths," said Dr. Yves Derouseu, Emergency Services Director at Lenox Hill Hospital.

High case numbers aren't anything to celebrate, but in this case it appears the situation is markedly different—and more encouraging—from even that of 11 months ago. Let's hope it stays that way.

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