Some Threats Just Keep Coming in Waves

Ideally, Americans would be able to raise their guard as each new coronavirus wave sweeps over the country and ease up when it recedes. In practice, we haven’t yet figured out how to prepare for future COVID-19 waves that come and go—and that might keep doing so for some time.

After a burst of vaccine-fueled optimism last spring, the prompted governments and businesses to slow their reopening plans. The waning of the milder but hyper-infectious Omicron variant, which as recently as late last month was still claiming more than 1,000 lives a day, finally prompted even COVID-cautious areas to let indoor mask mandates expire. Now the United States is relaxing fast, just as another version of Omicron is prompting a new round of precautions in other’s Katherine J. Wu described the potential surge as a “.”