Cornell loosened some of it’s public health regulations by not testing students after returning from thanksgiving and by allowing social gatherings to resume. The combination of the change of these two policies and the introduction of the highly transmissible Omicron variant created a super-spreader-like opportunity for a large outbreak to occur. Despite vaccinating 97% of the student population, the first batch of 115 samples taken from 18-24-year-old students revealed that all were infected by Omicron.
Preliminary statements by the local public health officials emphasize the need for boosters since the current vaccine regimen is not slowing down its spread; it’s highly transmissible nature is sufficient for it to overwhelm the healthcare sector without the need to factor in it’s severity.
Read more about the incident here.