People realize that “if I keep waiting for the right time, it would be a long wait,” Schweitzer said. “If you’re starting a business or starting a family … you might think, ‘Well let’s do it now, let’s move forward.’” Others arrived at this point long ago.

Of course, we’ve been here before. Several times.

“Today, while the virus hasn’t been vanquished, we know this: It no longer controls our lives. It no longer paralyzes our nation. And it’s within our power to make sure it never does again,” Biden said on July 4.

“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” President Donald Trump said on Feb. 27, 2020. “And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.”

Today we do know: Predictions of the virus’s demise have been wrong every time. Most experts have given up trying. We are just one variant away from going through it all over again.