You may not be able to watch your boss drink three liters of spiked eggnog and attempt the Whole Shack Shimmy this year after all. Omicron is here and, in a tag team with Delta, is forcing corporate America to pivot hard on holiday parties, WFH policies, and in-person events.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Covid cases across the US are up 40% from last month to an average of 118,717 new daily cases. NYC is a major hotspot: Positivity rates doubled in just three days from December 9–12, something that's never happened in NYC before in the pandemic.

The latest Covid surge is causing major problems for reopened America, just in time for the holidays.

• Goldman Sachs and other companies are canceling upcoming holiday parties.
• In Washington, the White House said it will dramatically scale back festivities this year.
• The association of HR professionals received more than 500 inquiries about Omicron over Thanksgiving break, according to WSJ.

Like a September Delta rerun, plans to head back to IRL work have stalled, or have been scrapped entirely in some cases. On Wednesday, Apple indefinitely delayed its return to the office, naming Omicron specifically as the cause. Google, Uber, Lyft, and Ford have also pushed back plans.

Indoor may be going out the door

In-person entertainment like concerts, Broadway shows, and sporting events are also being affected during the critical holiday season.

• Some large concerts for acts like Dead & Company and The Eagles have seen no-show rates as high as 20%, per the WSJ.
• Broadway shows like Hamilton, Mrs. Doubtfire, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, and several others have had to cancel performances in recent days due to Covid breakthroughs among casts and crews.
• Nearly 100 NFL players tested positive for Covid between Monday and Wednesday this week.

Looking ahead…studies indicate that boosters can restore protection against the Omicron variant. This week, booster mandates from businesses and colleges began to spring up across the country and will likely continue to expand.—MK

After West Side Story’s disappointing opening weekend last week, movie theaters are hoping Tom Holland swinging around NYC for 2.5 hours will be the Hail Mary they need. Spider-Man: No Way Home, which hits theaters today, is expected to be the first Covid-era movie to break the $100 million mark on opening weekend ticket sales.

Analysts are expecting the new Spider-Man flick to bring in anywhere from $130 million to (optimistically) $200 million. Pre-Covid, theatrical releases routinely smashed (or at least got close to) $100 million in their opening weekends, especially for movies with everyone’s favorite neighborhood arachnid boy: In 2017, Spider-Man: Homecoming brought in $117 million and its sequel in 2019, Spider-Man: Far From Home, just barely missed the mark with $92 million.

• Right now, Venom: Let There Be Carnage holds the record for the biggest opening weekend during the Covid-19 era at $90 million.

Early indications look promising. Thanks to its long list of confirmed—and rumored—cameos, the film already set pandemic-era opening day records in overseas markets like Korea ($5.28 million), Mexico ($9 million), and the UK ($10.1 million) on Wednesday.

Get pumped: Here’s a spoiler-free review of Spider-Man: No Way Home.—MM

You think inflation is bad here in the US? Let’s take a trip to Turkey, where inflation hit 21% in November and its currency, the lira, has shed 40% of its value against the dollar in the last three months.

These twin crises are eroding the ability of Turks to pay for everyday necessities like food, energy, and medicine. Lines are forming to buy bread. Youth unemployment is at 25%. One electrician told the NYT that his rent just went up to 2,000 lira; he makes 2,900 lira a month.

What’s been the response from the government? Pretty disastrous. As we know from the US’ current predicament, central banks typically raise interest rates in order to tamp down inflation. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who essentially controls the country’s economic policy, believes that it’s better to lower interest rates in the face of spiraling inflation, compounding the problem and spooking investors around the globe.

The latest: Turkey’s central bank cut interest rates again yesterday, and Erdoğan announced a 50% increase in the minimum wage. Experts say these actions will only exacerbate the currency crisis and stoke more inflation.—NF

Stat: Jay-Z has 99 problems and his SPAC is definitely one. Shares of the SPAC tied to the music mogul were down 84% this year as of Dec. 13, the worst performance of all 33 SPACs linked to celebrities. Fellow A-listers who tried to cash in on the SPAC boom aren’t exactly crushing it, either: 21 out of the 33 celebrity SPACs are negative for the year, per Bloomberg.

Quote: “I was wrong on this.”

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman walked back comments he made in June that he’d be “very disappointed” if the bank’s employees didn’t come back to the office by Labor Day. “Everybody’s still finding their way” when it comes to Covid, he told CNBC this week.

Read: An interview with Kim Kardashian. (Common Sense)

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to having all of your holiday shopping done two weeks ago.

It’s that satisfying. Take the quiz.

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Follow Friday: Natalie Sideserf will teach you how to make one of the most epic Christmas cakes we’ve ever seen—a Die Hard cake.

The busy simulator: Feign importance with repeating app sounds. Try it here—absolutely hilarious.

A pretty, pretty good investment. Check out the story of one investor who bought American Airlines stock at just $0.80 back when it declared bankruptcy…and turned it into a 7,000% return.

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There are four possible answers:

10, 32, 54, 76, 98
18, 36, 54, 72, 90
50, 61, 72, 83, 94
54, 63, 72, 81, 90