For the second year in a row, the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show will be postponed due to Covid-19, organizers said Wednesday.
The event will be held at a later date “due to the surge of the omicron variant in New York City,” it said. The show, its 146th, was to be held in the city in late January.
The dog show is usually held in February, but in 2021 it was moved to June and held outside in Tarrytown, New York, because of Covid-19.
A new date for this year’s show has not been announced.
The move comes amid a surge in cases in New York City and the state, along with the rest of the country, fueled by the more transmissible omicron variant.
There were around 58,800 new Covid-19 cases reported in New York state Wednesday, according to NBC News’ count of reports.
The increase in cases prompted officials to scale back the in-person New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square.
On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said whether people need to change their plans “really depends on what your plans are.”
“If your plans are to go to a 40- to 50-person New Year’s Eve party with all the bells and whistles and everybody hugging and kissing and wishing each other a happy New Year, I would strongly recommend that this year we do not do that,” he said at a briefing.
Small gatherings at a home with family and friends where people are vaccinated with boosters present a low risk, he said.