There is growing confidence that Omicron could be hurtling the UK into the pandemic endgame.
But what comes next? There will be no snap of the fingers to make the virus disappear. Instead, the new buzzword we’ll have to get used to is “endemic” - which means that Covid is, without doubt, here to stay.
So, is a new Covid-era truly imminent and what will that actually mean for our lives?
What’s changing is our immunity. The new coronavirus first emerged two years ago in Wuhan, China, and we were vulnerable. It was a completely new virus that our immune systems had not experienced before and we had no drugs or vaccines to help.
There were two options - either we would extinguish Covid, as we did with Ebola in West Africa, or it would die down but be with us for the long term. It would join the swarm of endemic diseases - such as common colds, HIV, measles, malaria and tuberculosis - that are always there.
For many, this was the inevitable fate of a virus that spreads through the air before you even know you’re sick. “Endemicity was written into this virus,” says Dr Elisabetta Groppelli, a virologist at St George’s, University of London.
“I am very optimistic,” she says. “We’ll soon be in a situation where the virus is circulating, we will take care of people at risk, but for anybody else we accept they will catch it - and your average person will be fine.”
The only major curve ball would be a new variant that can outcompete Omicron and cause significantly more severe disease.
See the article for more.