Yahoo TV

Multiple restaurants, bars, theaters, and other venues in New York City announced temporary closures by Friday, December 17, as the arrival of Omicron – a new, more transmissible variant of COVID-19 – led to a surge in cases.

New York State announced on Friday that more than 21,000 positive cases had been recorded the previous day: the highest number of daily cases recorded in the state since testing became widely available in the summer of 2020.

In the north Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, where almost 82 percent of residents were fully vaccinated, the spike prompted several restaurants and bars to temporarily close on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday either due to exposure to the virus among staff or out of caution.

The management at Madre, a restaurant on Franklin Street, announced on Thursday that they were closing that evening so their staff could get precautionary tests. The restaurant remained closed on Friday.

Another neighborhood restaurant, Bernie’s, which also closed on Thursday, said on Friday that it was extending the closure through the weekend as management addressed “exposure within the team.”

Several other local bars and restaurants shut their doors temporarily but reopened after staff were tested.

One such venue, Vietnamese restaurant Di An Di, reopened on Friday after being closed the previous two nights. In an Instagram post, they said they were “so thankful to report that the COVID exposure was an isolated incident.” Credit: Rob McDonagh via Storyful