people in the square, instead of the usual 60,000, and everybody had to be vaccinated and wear a mask. for decades, tens of thousands of revellers, many of them tourists, have filled the blocks around times square on new year s eve, standing for hours in the cold waiting to see the glittering crystal ball glide down a pole mounted on top of a skyscraper. still a lot of people there, most of them wearing masks, and they appear to be in good spirits. that is live in times square where the ball has just dropped to see in 2022. # new york, new york. so that is in new york in times
that 15,000 is a much lower number than we typically see in times square on new year s eve. all those things in place to keep folks safe. this comes as new york city is seeing record breaking covid case numbers. i spoke with some of the people about that. listen to what folks shared with me. we have to forget about this tonight and celebrate the new year. happy, happy. that the party is still going on. if everybody is vaccinated and they re wearing masks, what else do you need to do? what are your hopes for 2022? i would like to see a world without face masks and everybody can relax and breathe and there will be enough vaccines for everybody around the world so everybody can be healthy again. reporter: i will say for everyone i have spoken to, this is their first time spending new year s eve in times square, so
they are young. they re unvaccinated. they have we can t allow the visitors in. the ones that can speak that aren t requiring ventilators tell us they wish they got vaccinated. unfortunately most of these patients are gasping for breath and can t actually talk to us. we are exhausted and i m not sure how long this is going to keep up. new york city adjusting plans for new year s eve in times square. mayor bill de blasio announcing a scaled-back celebration with a maximum of 15,000 people allowed in and masks required for all. normally about four times that number are packed into times square on new year s eve. more good news on new covid treatments. for the second time in a week the fda green lighting a pill to fight the virus. for this to make a dent in the pandemic, testing capacity and turn around time will need to improve. senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen has more. christine, paula, on thursday
number of people testing positive continues to climate really just kind of an incredible pace. 44,431 people now testing positive for the omicron for the coronavirus. certainly as these numbers continue to increase, of course the city is concerned, the state is concerned, but what they are looking at, and this is really important, kate, is the number of hospitalizations. they say the vaccines are working and that really what it tells them is because the hospitalizations are not increasing, that is a good sign, and that is why we are seeing the mayor and other city officials here say we re going to allow people into times square on new year s eve. we re going to allow less people, 15,000, into these viewing pens. normally they allow up to 60,000, but they still feel it s safe enough to allow that many people in with some social distancing, so that s what they are going to do. as you can see, the numbers here
and we need to be really proud of ourselves as new yorkers. we were hit in the gut when covid first hit here. we adjusted and made smart decisions, we were able to push it back and that is what we re going to continue to do. this is a resilient city and we re going to defeat covid like we defeat any type of crises we re facing. if it were your call, would you have that public crowd in times square on new year s eve. it has to be on december 31st. the mayor is making the right decision. he used a powerful term, reassess. covid moves continuously. the mayor said let s reassess and that is what he s going to do on the 31st and i would tell you the same thing if i was the mayor at this time. mr. mayor-elect, we like to have responses to social media live during the courses of the program. let me show you some of what s just come in. we can respond together. rick says, i m vaccinated, i m protected, time to stop caring