Easing restrictions will open whole new pathways to social groups who have not yet been infected. China is about to explode, so transmission and variants to come from there. Most people are not boosted, immunity isn't gonna be as strong as we think.

I'm not quite convinced. It's estimated 45% of Americans have been infected. The mRNA vaccines are still reasonably effective at stopping infection against Omicron. Lots of states have been open and it's spread; what's left is lockdown-happy coastal cities, but they're heavily vaccinated. I do expect some bump, though.

China has problems. They have essentially zero natural immunity, their vaccines aren't very good, and Omicron spreads really well. So well masks aren't even close to enough. Once contact tracing is overwhelmed, China will have to do large-scale lockdowns on-and-off for a while.

One thing omicron seems to have made abundantly clear is that this virus is undergoing recombinant replication. That doesn't bode well for existing vaccines when so many hosts are unvaccinated/unexposed globally, where it can replicate and mutate readily.

The optimist in me wants to believe omicron is a sign of things to come; more infectious but less deadly variants we can largely ignore like the common cold. But what's preventing another variant emerging that's both more infectious and more deadly after ripping through one of the less vaccinated nations? The lethality aspect seems somewhat random from where I'm sitting, not an expert.

Also wars tend to make viruses evolve to more deadly variants since it's harder to isolate the sick, or at least that's the hypothesis about the 1918 flu.

In the year 2048, the drivethru at Dunkin Donuts is backed up for miles as people wait to get their free dozen donuts for getting their 100th booster. Johnny is seen jogging by without a mask as the people yell at them from their cars that he is endangering their lives.

I have bad news but we already get yearly boosters for respiratory diseases. And in pretty much every country except the US, people wear masks when they're sick.

> And in pretty much every country except the US, people wear masks when they're sick.

This isn’t true. Wearing masks when sick has only been common in East Asia since SARS and that’s the only region it was common in. It’s not universal there either. There was an irritated comment in my office Friday about someone sneezing who didn’t never his mouth, never mind wearing a mask.

Possibly wearing a mask will be normalized in Western countries after this is over but I sincerely doubt people in the Congo or Malawi or Guatemala are wearing masks while sick. Lots of people and countries are dirt poor.

People that are at high risk of the flu get yearly shots for it, but typically they are only between 40 and 60% effective. No one is saying that sick people shouldn't wear masks.

This is good news.