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www.cnn.com
Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?
The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic.
Health
(CNN)The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic.
But two months later, with Omicron dominant across much of the globe, the narrative has shifted for some.
"Levels of concern about Omicron tend to be lower than with previous variants," Simon Williams, a researcher in public attitudes and behaviors towards Covid-19 at Swansea University, told CNN. For many, "the 'fear factor of Covid' is lower," he said.
Omicron's reduced severity compared to previous variants, and the perceived likelihood that individuals will eventually be infected, have contributed to that relaxation in people's mindsets, Williams said. This has even caused some people to actively seek out the illness to "get it over with" -- a practice experts have strongly warned against.
But some within the scientific community are cautiously optimistic that Omicron could be the pandemic's last act -- providing huge swathes of the world with "a layer of immunity," and moving us closer to an endemic stage when Covid-19 is comparable to seasonal illnesses like the cold or flu.
"My own view is that it's becoming endemic, and it will continue to stay endemic for some time -- as has happened with other coronaviruses," said David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"All viruses try to become endemic, and to me this one looks like it's succeeding," he said.
Covid-19 has evolved with great unpredictability, and the variant that superseded Delta could have been more sinister, experts say; but the world ultimately got a dominant strain that is sweeping through populations with ease, without causing the same degree of hospitalizations, severe illnesses and deaths that previous variants have done.
Experts caution that there may be setbacks along the way -- just as Omicron's make-up was unexpected, the next variant could present a more serious public health risk and delay the end of the pandemic.
And many countries, particularly where vaccination coverage is low, could still face overwhelmed hospitals due to the current Omicron wave.
But a political urgency is appearing in much of the West to return societies to a sense of normality -- with the transmissibility of Omicron forcing leaders to choose between rolling back public health measures or seeing their workforces and economies risk grinding to a standstill.
And for the first time since the spread of Covid-19 stunned the world in early 2020, some epidemiologists and leaders are willing to entertain the prospect that the virus might be making steps toward endemic status.