WASHINGTON: Lines again stretch around blocks at some COVID-19 testing sites.
Refrigerated mobile morgues are on order, and parts of Europe are re-tightening borders amid a winter spike in coronavirus infections.
This year's holiday season was supposed to be a do-over for last year's subdued celebrations.
Instead it's turning into a redux of restrictions, cancellations and rising angst over the never-ending pandemic.
"This year, more than ever, everyone needed a holiday," said John McNulty, owner of Thief, a Brooklyn bar that had to close for a day earlier this week because of an infected employee.
As Christmas and New Year's approach, a pall lingers over the holidays.
Infections are soaring around the world, and the quickly spreading omicron variant has triggered new restrictions on travel and public gatherings reminiscent of the dark days of 2020.
"We've seen a significant number of cancellations and that's accelerating every day, which seems to have thrown us back into that sort of zombie world of the first week of March of the pandemic last year," said Jonathan Neame, the chief executive of Shepherd Neame, Britain's oldest brewery and chain of pubs.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that the city would "watch very carefully" whether to press ahead with plans to welcome a fully vaccinated crowd back to Times Square on New Year's Eve, a celebration that was cancelled last year.
It's a go for now, the mayor said.
Multiple Broadway shows, including "Hamilton," "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," called off performances in recent days because of virus cases in their all-vaccinated casts and crews.
California and New York brought back indoor mask mandates.
In Philadelphia, Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole urged residents not to go to indoor holiday parties, calling them "just too dangerous."
She ruefully advised against even getting together with other households for Christmas.
"It's hard, and it feels impossible, and it feels unfair," she acknowledged, but "I have to say it."
Many Americans have spent nearly two years on an emotional seesaw as the pandemic worsened and waned in cycles and the hoped-for return to normal kept getting pushed back.
A recent poll by MTV Entertainment Group and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly half of American adults said the pandemic made it harder to maintain their mental health.
"I think for a large number of people, there was this hopefulness that this holiday season was going to be different. So if you went in with that expectation, and you weren't adjusting it over the last couple of months, I think you're going to be all the more disappointed," said Dr. Vaile Wright, a clinical psychologist who works for the American Psychological Association.
Her advice? "Try to get to a place where the expectation is that this is going to continue on for a while, and if you're feeling stuck, try to find ways to make your life meaningful right now."
Stephanie Aheart, 33, of Columbia, Connecticut, said she, her husband and their children, ages 3 and 4, will remain socially isolated this holiday season, as they were last year.
Her 4-year-old son was born with with a compromised immune system, and both her children are too young to be vaccinated.
"It's just a new way of life," she said.
"I don't think about how hard it is. It's just something that I have to do for my family."
After last winter's brutal COVID-19 surge forced him to skip his usual Christmas trip home to visit family and friends in the Midwest, Don Carlson booked plane tickets this September.
The college administrator in San Francisco figured with vaccinations available and a lower number of infections, the trip to Minneapolis and Nebraska would be fine.
Soon after, hospitals started filing up in the Midwest amid a rise in cases.
Then came the discovery of the omicron variant.
Carlson, 59, couldn't in good conscience make the trip, so he canceled.
He will stay in Northern California and get together with a few friends, also vaccinated and boosted, for small dinners around the holiday.
He plans to do Zoom calls with friends and relatives.
"It's disappointing, but what would be far more disappointing is spreading it to an elderly person in your family because you went through airports," Carlson said.
"I think it's just prudent to stay put."
Dakota LeRoy, a 25-year-old product designer in Manhattan who is fully vaccinated, had reasoned that it would be safe to go to a Christmas-themed dive bar to celebrate a new job last week.
But on Wednesday she found she was infected with COVID-19, after a scratchy throat and some sniffles prompted her to get tested before a holiday visit with her boyfriend's family in Boston.
"Everyone I know is either positive or has been in direct contact with somebody who is," she said.
Not everyone has been as alarmed.
April Burns, a bill collector for New York City, said things are far from being back to normal, but she considers the worst to be over.
"Last year, everybody was shut down. At least now, things are open, you know. You can get out more, and you still get to see people," said Burns, who is unvaccinated and was standing in line Thursday near Wall Street to comply with city rules that require her to be tested weekly.
Yvonne Sidella, a "50-something" from Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, views the steep rise in cases and the looming threat of omicron with equanimity.
She does not plan to let it alter holiday plans that include time with her elderly parents, her four children and her eight grandchildren.
"I'm not going to let this blow my spirit," said Sidella, a manufacturing supervisor.
"I'm going to continue to live my life. I'm not going to let this here thing have me afraid to go places or to do things or to touch people."
Soaring infections in Britain driven in part by the omicron variant of the coronavirus rattled Europe on Thursday, prompting new restrictions on the Continent and fuelling a familiar dread on both sides of the Atlantic about entering a new phase of the pandemic just in time for the holidays.
Much remains unknown about omicron, but officials increasingly warn that it appears more transmissible than the delta variant, which has already put pressure on hospitals worldwide.
With so many questions unanswered, uncertainty reigned over how quickly and how severely to crack down on Christmas travel and year-end parties.
After the U.K. recorded its highest number of confirmed new COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began, France announced Thursday that it would tighten entry rules for those coming from Britain.
Hours later, the country set another record, with a further 88,376 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported Thursday, almost 10,000 more than the day before.
In England, the chief medical officer urged people to limit who they see in the festive period.
Pubs and restaurants said many people were heeding that advice by canceling Christmas parties, though there has been much debate about what's OK to do.
In the U.S., the White House insisted there was no need for a lockdown, despite signs that omicron was gaining ground there.
Globally, more than 75 countries have reported confirmed cases of the new variant.
In Britain, where omicron cases are doubling every two to three days, omicron was expected to soon replace delta as the dominant strain in the country.
The government has accelerated its booster program in response.
Authorities in the 27-nation European Union say omicron will be the dominant variant in the bloc by mid-January.
Early data suggests that omicron may be milder but better at evading vaccines, making booster shots more crucial.
Experts have urged caution in particular about drawing conclusions because hospitalizations lag behind infections and because many variables contribute to how sick people get.
Even if omicron proves milder on the whole than delta, it may disarm some of the lifesaving tools available and put immune-compromised and elderly people at particular risk.
And if it's more transmissible, more infections overall raise the risk that more cases will be serious.
While experts gather the data, some governments rushed to act, while others sought to calm fears that the new variant would land countries back on square one.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted Thursday that the situation in the U.K. is different from last year because of the widespread use of vaccines and the ability to test.
If people want to attend an event "the sensible thing to do is to get a test and to make sure that you're being cautious,'' he said.
"But we're not saying that we want to cancel stuff. We're not locking stuff down, and the fastest route back to normality is to get boosted," he said.
Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, struck a more cautious note, advising people earlier in the week to limit their social contacts.
On Thursday, he told a parliamentary committee hearing that the government could have to review measures if vaccines prove less effective than expected against omicron.
He said that "would be a material change to how ministers viewed the risks going forward."
Among those taking the more cautious route was Queen Elizabeth II, who opted to cancel her traditional pre-Christmas family lunch.
In the United States, President Joe Biden's administration said tighter restrictions are not planned.
"We're in a very different and stronger place than we were a year ago, and there's no need to lock down," White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday.
"We're not going to shut down our economy in any way. We're going to keep our schools and our businesses open."
Still there's a feeling of unease among some in the U.S. Michael Stohl, 32, was relieved when he got the Pfizer vaccine last spring, but the spread of omicron has turned his optimism to dread.
"Even though I'm fully vaccinated right now, that doesn't seem to give me any sort of guarantee anymore," he said.
"It just puts this anxiety over you because they tell you the boosters will work, but that's what they said about the original vaccines. Am I going to have to keep getting vaccinated every couple months?" He said he booked an appointment to receive his booster shot Thursday morning.
Stohl, who works at the concierge desk at an apartment building in downtown Washington, said his family all lives in the city so he isn't travelling for Christmas.
However, he worries about friends and coworkers who will travel.
"I just remember how bad everything was last year, and it's looking like it might be that bad again," he said.
People in the Netherlands, meanwhile, have been in a partial lockdown since November to curb a delta-driven surge.
While infection numbers are now declining, the government this week ordered elementary schools to close for Christmas a week early amid fears of a new rise.
Authorities also sped up a booster campaign as caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte cited Britain as an example of how swiftly the variant can spread.
EU leaders gathering in Brussels for a summit Thursday sought to balance tackling the surge of infections across the continent while keeping borders open with common policies throughout the bloc.
"Let's try to maintain the European solution," Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said.
"If every country goes it alone again, we'll be even further from home."
But ahead of the meeting, European nations already were acting to rein in the spread.
Greece and Italy tightened entry requirements for travellers earlier this week, and Portugal decided to keep stricter border controls in place beyond their planned Jan.9 end.
France said Thursday that it will slap restrictions on travellers arriving from the U.K., which is no longer part of the EU, putting limits on reasons for travelling and requiring 48 hours of isolation upon arrival.
The new measures will take effect early Saturday.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said the measures were being imposed "in the face of the extremely rapid spread of the omicron variant in the U.K."
The abrupt move comes after weeks of political tensions between France and Britain over fishing rights and how to deal with migration across the English Channel.
The French government is desperately trying to avoid a new lockdown that would hurt the economy and cloud President Emmanuel Macron's expected reelection campaign.
Waiting outside a Paris train station, Constantin Dobrynin said that he sometimes felt governments over-reacted and imposed unnecessary measures.
As for omicron, it wasn't yet clear how serious it would be.
"So we should be balanced, and we shouldn't be panicked," he said.
Britain said it was not planning reciprocal measures.
Fearing a raft of cancelled parties and a general drop in business at the height of the crucial and lucrative Christmas season, British restaurants and pubs demanded government help Thursday.
They said concerns about the new variant have already wiped out 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) in sales over the last 10 days.
Across London, restaurants that would normally see bustling crowds clinking glasses and tucking into festive meals were reporting droves of cancellations and empty rooms.
"It's a complete nightmare. This week should be the busiest week of the year for hospitality," said Sally Abé, a chef at the Conrad Hotel in central London.
"It's everywhere, everybody's cancelling, but there's no support from the government."