To get an early sense of what the heavily mutated Omicron variant has in store for the United States, look no further than Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

On Tuesday, Dec. 7, Cornell conducted 5,456 tests and reported 27 COVID-19 cases on campus. That translates into a positivity rate of 0.49 percent. So far, so good.

But just six days later, on Monday, Dec. 13, the school reported 10 times as many cases (276) — despite conducting roughly the same number of tests (5,832).

A health care worker takes a nasal swab during a coronavirus test at a pop-up testing site in Brooklyn in May. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

In other words,