Omicron Is the Beginning of the End

[Celerity]

No matter the severity of the variant, the appetite for shutdowns or other large-scale social interventions simply isn’t there.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/omicron-end-of-pandemic/621089/

https://archive.fo/rmgdE



It feels like everyone I know has COVID. During earlier stages of the pandemic, most of my friends were spared a direct brush with the virus. Perhaps they used to be much more careful. Or perhaps they were just lucky. Whatever the reason, their good fortune has now run out. Seven close friends recently told me they had tested positive. Several more strongly suspect they have COVID but are unable to get their hands on a test. Thankfully, everyone has decidedly mild symptoms (no doubt in part because they all are vaccinated and they are not in high-risk categories).

The pattern among my circle of friends fits with what’s unfolding in South Africa, where the coronavirus’s new Omicron variant was first identified. The number of cases in the country shot up quickly, but the number of deaths has so far increased much, much more gradually—possibly indicating that Omicron is more contagious but causes less severe disease than previous variants. Early signs from other places are a little more concerning, however. And even a significantly less deadly strain could cause a whole lot of carnage if it spreads very quickly.

Muddy early data mean that, for now at least, the immediate epidemiological future is uncertain. We could be in for a few months of relatively mild inconvenience before Omicron goes out with a whimper. Or we could be about to experience yet another exponential rise in hospitalizations and deaths. And yet I wager that, whatever course Omicron—or future strains of the disease—might take, we are about to experience the end of the pandemic as a social phenomenon.

From the first days of the pandemic, both experts and laypeople have disagreed about the extent to which we should engage in social distancing or government-imposed shutdowns. At every stage, some people wanted to take radical steps while others were more worried about the costs and drawbacks of such interventions. And that still holds true today. But the continuous fights over masks and vaccine mandates obscure the extent to which the field of battle has shifted in recent months.

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