I don’t think OP is concerned with yearly shots or covid hanging around. It’s the lockdowns and other restrictions that people care about.

Bingo. It’s long since time to stop spending this much energy on this myopic fixation on Covid. There are billions of other things for each individual to worry about besides the spread of Covid. And that is a fact, which doesn’t care about the feelings of people pushing society to continue waging an impossible war on a respiratory virus.

Except that when these variants strike in waves they overwhelm hospitals that even the fittest among us still need from time to time. Perhaps permanently increased hospital capacity and a few million fewer people is a better trade off. Assuming there aren't other less visible costs.

The existence of Covid won’t end, but the pandemic has to. Living with overloaded hospitals forever, or doubling/tripling our health systems capacity to deal with it permanently don’t sound like very good ideas.

Endemic aerosolized variants could ultimately cull / mame everyone with a weakened immune response. The end game could be permanently higher overall mortality and reduced respiratory fitness in a significant part of the population.

If humans evolve to adapt then those adaptations may come at the cost of something else, given large enough time scales.

I agree with it's constant forever, just like flu. maybe we get a breakthrough treatment / vaccine for all virus' like that.

But we don't regular wear masks during winter nor enforce limited capacity or hours or quarantines. Personally of those options I'd be down for short term, financially assisted family quarantine and punishments for going to work sick.