Could the pandemic still end in 2022? Omicron surge rewriting the plan

As the Omicron variant gains momentum in Canada, the United States and Europe, scientists are rewriting their expectations for the COVID-19 pandemic next year.

Just weeks ago, disease experts were predicting that countries would begin to emerge from the pandemic in 2022 after enduring a series of surges driven by the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants. First among them would be populations with a significant amount of exposure to the coronavirus, through a combination of infections and vaccination.

In those places, COVID-19 was expected to ease into an endemic disease, hopefully with less-severe periodic or seasonal outbreaks. Vaccines, available for much of 2021 only in wealthy nations, could reach the majority of the global population by the end of the year ahead.

But the rapid spread of the highly-mutated Omicron variant, identified in late November, and its apparent ability to reinfect people at a higher rate than its predecessors, is undermining that hope.

Already, countries are reverting to measures used earlier in the pandemic: restricting travel, reimposing mask requirements, advising against large gatherings for the winter holidays. While it is not quite back to square one, much more of the world will need to be vaccinated or exposed to COVID-19 to get past the worst of the pandemic, disease experts told Reuters.