Omicron Could Be the Beginning of the End of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Omicron is less virulent and more infectious. It could be the pandemic's last stand.

• When Jeremy Luban first looked over the genetic sequence of the Omicron variant on his phone one day last November, it was five o’clock in the morning. But even at that hour, the University of Massachusetts virus expert knew right away Omicron was a problem.

• First, there was the sheer number of new mutations—by some counts, as many as 50, with 30 of them in the critical places that vaccines and drug treatments target. Second, this new version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus seemed to appear out of nowhere, unpredictably and with no immediately obvious connection to previous variants.

Edited By Alice Park