Concerns that omicron surge could lead to an outage of essential services have spurred new quarantine and isolation rules

Senior health officials in the administration met over Christmas weekend to discuss the trajectory of the outbreak in the United States, with several expressing fears that the number of cases will rise in the weeks to come. come, according to four senior officials briefed on the discussion. They feared that the sheer volume of infections would mean tens of thousands of police, firefighters, grocers and other essential workers would be out of work, making it harder for society to function, even though many infections would be mild or produce zero. symptoms, officials said.