But there are also disease experts who fear the pendulum will swing too far the other way. They worry that many world leaders are gambling on a relatively benign outcome from this omicron variant surge, and sending messages that will lead people who are normally prudent to abandon the social distancing and mask-wearing known to limit the pathogen’s spread. Epidemiologists say the live-with-it strategy underestimates the dangers posed by omicron.

“This notion of learning to live with it, to me, has always meant a surrendering, a giving up,” World Health Organization epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan likewise fears that people are relaxing sensible precautions prematurely: “I understand the temptation to say, ‘I give up, it’s too much.’ Two years is a lot. Everybody’s sick of it. I hate this. But it doesn’t mean actually the game is lost.”..

“If we just completely let everything go and allow the omicron epidemic to run its natural course, we’ll completely overrun our health system and be left in a situation potentially worse than what we experienced in early 2020,” said James Lawler, co-director of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Global Center for Health Security.