NYC restaurant owner says business has plummeted by up to 70% as Omicron deters diners

• The owner of a Manhattan restaurant says diners aren't eating out as much amid Omicron's spread.
• Thomas Makkos said business at his restaurant had fallen by 60% to 70% over the last two weeks.

The owner of a restaurant in New York City says that diners have stopped eating out as much amid the spread of the $4 coronavirus variant, causing business to fall by around 70%.

Thomas Makkos, who owns Manhattan Italian restaurant Nello, told $4 that there had been "a lot of cancellations."

"People are very afraid to come out," he said. "It has created a huge vacuum of cancellations that keep on going."

$4 globally and $4. Studies suggest that Omicron is $4 than previous variants, though some data indicates $4.

Coronavirus cases in New York City have soared in December. The city has recorded nearly 1.44 million cases since the start of the pandemic, with almost a fifth of those being in December 2021, data from the $4 shows.

The city's seven-day moving average hit a record 24,102 cases on Monday, the most-recent day for which CDC data is available. This is almost four times higher than the city's seven-day moving average at the height of last winter's peak.

"In the last two weeks, business has gone down 60 to 70%," Makkos told Fox Business Tuesday.

Makkos also said that the $4, $4, and $4 had made the pandemic difficult for Nello.

He added that the city's COVID-19 regulations, which included months where indoor dining was off-limits and periods where restaurants could only open dining rooms at 25% capacity, had been "very strict from day one." Makkos said that the regulations were "catastrophic" and had hurt his restaurant "immensely."

It's not just restaurants being affected by rising COVID-19 cases. The New York City Transit Authority said on Sunday that $4 because of the COVID-19 surge, which had caused staff sickness.