Harsh virus restrictions, such as border closures and quarantines, may certainly be in place until the end of 2022, though the new strains’ increased contagiousness is making that more difficult to maintain.

As a virus-weary world enters the third year of the crisis, researchers are issuing a warning: Don’t assume Omicron will be the last strain we face – and don’t drop your protection just yet.

Countries throughout the world are easing restrictions and softening their messaging in the face of a massive wave of milder infections.

Many people believe they have been exposed to Covid-19 and that the pandemic has ended. That is not always the case, however.

The problem will not be over until it is over all around the world. As the coronavirus predominantly attacks under-vaccinated developing countries over the coming months, the impacts will continue to ripple across wealthier nations, affecting supply chains, travel arrangements, and health care.

Before any of that can happen, the world must first overcome the current tsunami. Although Omicron appears to produce less severe disease than earlier strains, it is incredibly contagious, increasing new case counts to previously unfathomable heights.

Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that the variation isn’t as harmless as preliminary findings imply. There’s also no guarantee that the following mutation, if there are any, won’t be an offshoot of a more deadly type like Delta. And there’s a chance you’ll catch Covid-19 more than once.

According to Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Medicine, “The virus keeps raising that bar for us every few months.”

“When we were celebrating the amazing effectiveness of booster shots against the Delta variant, the bar was already being raised by Omicron.

“It seems like we are constantly trying to catch up with the virus.”

It’s depressing for a world that has been battling the virus with new confidence in recent months. But it isn’t all doom and gloom.

Scientists believe that it is too early to declare the issue under control.

Many wealthy countries will have achieved the transition from pandemic to endemic in six months. However, this does not rule out the use of masks. We’ll have to consider our approach to booster shots, as well as the economic and political consequences of the pandemic.

Additionally, there is the looming shadow of Covid.

Dr. Peter Hotez, head of Baylor College of Medicine’s National School of Tropical Medicine added, “There is a lot of happy talk that goes along the lines that Omicron is a mild virus and it’s effectively functioning as an attenuated live vaccine that’s going to create massive herd immunity across the globe.”

“That’s flawed for a number of reasons.”

Experts now fear that the virus will never completely vanish, but will continue to change, spawning fresh outbreaks. Every time the infection replicates, mutations are possible, putting everyone at risk.

The magnitude of the current outbreak inevitably means that additional hospitalizations, fatalities, and viral mutations will occur.

Many infected people aren’t included in official statistics, either because a home test result isn’t formally documented or because the sick person is never tested.

Dr. Trevor Bedford, an epidemiologist at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre who is known for finding early Covid-19 cases and tracking the outbreak worldwide, thinks that only around 20% to 25% of omicron infections in the United States are reported.

With daily cases peaking at more than 800,000 in mid-January, Dr Bedford estimates that the number of underlying infections may have approached 3 million per day, or roughly 1% of the US population.

Since recovery takes five to ten days, up to 10% of the country’s population could be infected at any given moment. He’s not the only one who makes cosmic predictions.

According to Dr Hans Kluge, a regional director for the World Health Organization, computer modeling suggests that more than half of Europe will have contracted Omicron by mid-March at the present infection rate.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, a sub-variant known as BA.2 is quickly proliferating. According to one of the country’s leading scientists, it appears to be considerably more transmissible than the original strain, and could create a second surge in the current wave.

And just because you’ve had the virus before doesn’t mean you won’t get it again, because Covid doesn’t provide long-term immunity.

New findings reveal that Delta infections, even in vaccinated patients, were ineffective in preventing Omicron.

That would explain why, even after being ravaged by Delta, regions like Britain and South Africa experienced such large outbreaks.

Omicron also has a far higher rate of reinfection than prior strains.

“With Omicron, because it has more of an upper respiratory component, it’s even less likely to result in durable immunity” than previous variants, according to Dr. Hotez.

“On that basis, it’s incorrect thinking to believe that this is somehow going to be the end of the pandemic.”

As a result, getting ready for the next Covid strains is critical.

Professor Glenda Gray, chief executive officer of the South African Medical Research Council predict, “as long as there are areas of the world where the virus could be evolving, and new mutants arriving, we all will be susceptible to these new variants.”

Lockdowns and travel restrictions are not going away, even as they become less stringent in general.

According to Dr. Mark McClellan, Former FDS director, “The things that will matter there are whether we are able to respond when there is a local surge.”

“Maybe going back to putting on more masks or being a little bit more cautious about distancing.”

The world’s first way to protect against Covid-19 is still vaccination.

More than 62% of people worldwide have received at least one dose, with overall rates in wealthier countries being higher than in underdeveloped ones.

At the current rate, it will take another five months until 75% of the world’s population has received their first vaccination.

However, studies show that just one or two injections aren’t enough to keep the infection at bay.

A booster shot, which triggers the formation of neutralizing antibodies and a deeper immune response, is the best option at this time. Traditional inactivated vaccinations, such as the commonly used Sinovac Biotech injections, will require at least two boosters – preferably with different vaccines – to control the virus, according to Yale’s Dr. Iwasaki.

At some point in the next six months, more countries will be debating whether or not to use the fourth shot.

Israel has begun, and the United States supports them in their efforts to protect vulnerable people, but India is resisting and refuses to “blindly follow” other countries.

While the virus will not continue to overrun hospitals and cause restrictions indefinitely, it is uncertain when – or how – it will be safe to put on the back burner.

According to experts interviewed by Bloomberg News, the virus might be fully under control in wealthy countries such as the United States and much of Europe by mid-2022.

Sooner or later, people should get used to the fact that Covid-19 is here to stay, but, there will be better access to pills such as Pfizer’s Paxlovid, rapid antigen tests.

By the end of February, most portions of the United States and the industrialized world will be free of serious outbreaks, according to Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Vaccines and novel therapies, as well as extensive testing and immunity from past illnesses, are all assisting. Despite continuous breakouts, countries such as Denmark are removing all pandemic restrictions.

“That is a world that feels fundamentally different from the world of the last two years,” he said. “We get to come back to something resembling normal.”

“I don’t think it’s irrational for politicians to embrace that, for policies to reflect that.”

Elsewhere on Earth, the pandemic will likely not be over.

The threat of novel mutations is greatest in less developed countries, particularly those with a high prevalence of immunological disorders.

The Delta mutation was discovered in India, while Omicron appeared in southern Africa, most likely as a result of a prolonged Covid-19 infection in an HIV patient who was immunocompromised.

“As long as we refuse to vaccinate the world, we will continue to see new waves,” Dr Hotez said. “We are going to continue to have pretty dangerous variants coming out of low- and middle-income countries. That’s where the battleground is.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, sr. scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security in Baltimore, believes the pandemic will continue beyond 2023 in portions of the developing world.

“For me, the transition from pandemic to endemic is when you’re not worried about hospitals getting crushed,” he said. “That will happen in most Western countries in 2022, and it will take a little bit longer for the rest of the world.”

Public health professionals in certain parts of Asia are unwilling to even consider declaring the pandemic over. While the majority of the globe today attempts to coexist with Covid, China and Hong Kong continue to try to eradicate it. Both places are currently grappling with outbreaks after spending much of 2021 practically virus-free.

“We do not possess the prerequisites for living with the virus because the vaccination rate is not good, especially amongst the elderly,” said Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam.

“I could not stand seeing a lot of old people dying in my hospitals.”

Harsh virus restrictions, such as border closures and quarantines, may certainly be in place until the end of 2022, though the new strains’ increased contagiousness is making that more difficult to maintain, as Hong Kong’s current challenges demonstrate.

It may no longer be possible to totally isolate the virus, as a number of countries did early in the pandemic.

With such a large portion of the planet still engulfed in the pandemic, virus-related disruptions will continue to occur around the world.

Workers sickened or forced to quarantine as a result of Omicron exacerbate the enormous burden on global supply systems.

The situation is more serious in Asia, where much of the world’s manufacturing occurs, implying that worldwide concerns about rising consumer costs are unlikely to go away anytime soon. China’s more strident efforts to suppress Covid-19 are also causing havoc.

International travel is still far from what we consider usual in 2019, with several countries only partially available to travelers.

After two years of immense stress, hospitals and healthcare systems around the world are facing a long, difficult recovery.

For certain people, the infection might be a life sentence.

For months, long-term Covid patients have been experiencing severe fatigue, muscle aches, and possibly brain, heart, and organ damage.

How long will we be coping with the virus’s long-term consequences?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” South Africa’s Prof Gray said. “Hopefully we can control this in the next two years, but the issues of long Covid will persist. We will see a huge burden of people suffering from it.”

Over the next few months, a picture of what it’s like to live permanently with Covid-19 should emerge.

Some communities may almost completely forget about the virus until a flare-up causes courses to be canceled for the day or businesses to struggle with employees calling in sick. Other nations may rely on winter masking, and a yearly Covid-19 vaccine will almost certainly be administered with the flu shot.

To survive, the virus will have to mutate to circumvent the rising levels of immunity in many regions of the world.

“There could be many scenarios,” Yale’s Dr Iwasaki said.

“One is that the next variant is going to be quite transmissible, but less virulent. It’s getting closer and closer to the common cold kind of virus.”

If that evolution pursues a more toxic course, we will risk ending up with a more severe disease.

“I just hope we don’t have to keep making new boosters every so often,” she added. “We can’t just vaccinate everyone around the world four times a year.”

“It’s really hard to predict.”

Image Credit: AFP

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