The Forever Virus

The Omicron wave could possibly mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic. What else does the virus have in store for 2022 and the years to come?

- By Ned Potter and Fred Guterl. Photographs by Abel Mitjá Varela and Getty Images

“Hope needs to be tempered by the facts on the ground. And those facts are seriously troubling.”

The omicron wave currently washing over the world may have just hit its peak. According to the scientists at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington (IHME), which runs computer models of the pandemic, the number of daily reported cases in the United States was expected to hit a maximum of 1.2 million by January 19, and then decline. If the pattern of South Africa holds up in the U.S., that decline will be steep.

It is possible, but far from certain, that the Omicron onslaught marks the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. The optimistic scenario goes something like this: Once Omicron is through ravaging the world, enough people will have acquired natural immunity that, together with those who have been vaccinated, the virus is suppressed to more or less permanently low levels in the population. When—if—that happy day arrives, the world will begin making the transition from continual crisis to something more manageable—a slow-boiling concern that keeps scientists and public-health officials occupied but leaves the rest of humanity free to go about the daily business of life.

The pessimistic scenario, which unfortunately is equally valid, starts with that familiar bugaboo: the random threat of some new, unforeseen mutation of the COVID-19 virus rising up and dashing our hopes. In this view, Omicron subsides only to be replaced by yet another troublesome new variant that causes more illness and death and extends the pandemic.