New COVID variants are everywhere — will they drag out pandemic?

Just when it looked like there might be a light at the end of this dark pandemic tunnel, along comes a suite of new coronavirus strains that are more transmissible, at least partially resistant to vaccines, and able to infect people who’ve already had COVID-19.

And they’ve all been detected in the United States.

If these developments have your hope fading and dread rising, you are not alone. Many of us are wondering how these variants will affect the course of the pandemic — particularly, whether they’re a sign that we’ll never be able to get ahead of the virus. Are we going to be socially distanced from each other for the rest of our lives?

To find out whether this despair is merited, I reached