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 to get past the worst of the pandemic, disease experts told Reuters.

“People are sick of the pandemic and God knows I am, but unless we can get some urgency to compel our leaders to take action, I really see 2022 being a lot of more of the same that we saw in 2021,” said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Even after COVID becomes a more endemic disease, new variants will spawn outbreaks and seasonal surges for years to come.

“There’s always going to be a baseline number of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “A lot of people haven’t come to terms with that.”