America’s third year of dealing with the pandemic is likely to start as bleak as ever, with a devastating Omicron surge for the first couple of months.
Yes, but: Experts are hopeful that once the wave of cases, hospitalizations and deaths caused by the Omicron variant ebbs, life will finally be able to more closely resemble normal.
Between the lines: The silver lining of a tough January and February is that most of the country could have some degree of immunity afterward — either through vaccination, infection or both — that helps protect them against severe COVID infections in the future.
- “It’s conceivable that, sooner or later, that everybody will have been infected and/or vaccinated or boosted,” NIAID director Anthony Fauci told Axios.
- “When you get to that point, unless you have a very bizarre variant come in that evades all protection — which would be unusual — then I think you could get to that point where you have this at a steady level.”
- And a fourth shot isn’t off the table, Fauci said: “It is entirely conceivable that that may be the case.”
www.axios.com/america-third-year-covid-c779feaa-b257-4544-968d-d2f1b9be862c.html
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