But what if they're never over?
The US and Western Europe have, by now, enough high-quality vaccine for everyone, and we're all stuck at, what, 60% of the population vaccinated?
A bunch of people died, a bunch of people went broke, but during this pandemic the rich have mostly gotten a whole lot richer. Even the rich who don't think of themselves as rich: own a house in Silicon Valley, have a dozen years of 401K and some stock -- these people have done very well.
We have to fight the virus; but we also have to fight the anti-vaxxers and the apathetic, and we have to do it in a world where the people with real power are actually gonna be just fine if everything locks down for four months out of every year.
I've started trying to imagine life in that kind of future. Say two lockdowns every year, in a good year it's a month each time, in a bad year maybe you're locked in your apartment half the time, and that's for people who get their booster shot every year.
Maybe forever. What does society look like in that scenario?