Digested week: New York catastrophism softens some Covid blows

The city appears to be behind the UK's Omicron curve, but parties are starting to be cancelled

How are things over there? It's mad over here." Until recently that line, delivered by people in the UK to people in the US, gave rise to some smugness among the Americans. During late summer and autumn, the pendulum of who was having a better pandemic had swung firmly towards those in the UK. Enviously, we in New York looked across the Atlantic to British kids sitting unmasked at school, at indoor playdates and parties, and at the conviction, voiced by many in Britain, that everything was more or less back to normal. Now you all seem to have Covid and Christmas is cancelled. No one here is talking about cancelling the holidays.