Usually as one tails off the next one is apparent. There is currently no clear variant on the horizon, so I respectfully disagree. Omicron was the natural vaccination that finished off this pandemic, which is how you would generally expect a pandemic to end.
I think we are done.
We were done on day one. There was no pandemic. The numbers were bogus. Do you have a dancing tic tock video out there from when you all were swamped with the dying?
People have thought we are done for what, 20 months?
Zero reason to think so.
“There is currently no clear variant on the horizon”
I’d assess that there is extremely little room left for another variant to run, even if there was one in the wings.
The BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron is around 50% more infectious than the original Omicron, but apparently about the same for severity or immune evasiveness. It is expected to become the dominant lineage (a growing slice of the shrinking pie), as it has in other areas where it got an earlier start (like Denmark and South Africa, where cases continued dropping, while BA.2 became dominant).
It is likely to only make a minor marginal stretch out to the tail of the Omicron wave. So far, nothing noticeable.
I too, think we are (effectively) done with all the hoopla and over-reaching restrictions. I expect case levels to scrape low, like last Summer, before Delta.
We will probably see some seasonal resurgence in the future, and an ongoing vaccination effort, but I think that the restrictions will drop, and folks will be heading back into the office in earnest next month.