Covid isn’t going away. So how do we live with it?

As we near the end of our second year living through a pandemic, countries are taking somewhat different approaches to handling the virus.In [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( As we near the end of our second year living through a pandemic, countries are taking somewhat different approaches to handling the virus. In the U.K., disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an end to all Plan B restrictions and a target date for ditching the legal requirement to isolate after contracting Covid-19. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has sentenced more than 2,000 hamsters — including beloved pets — to death after 11 hamsters in a single pet shop were found to have traces of the coronavirus. [The scientific basis for that decision is questionable,]( says Matthew Brooker, who says that the episode fuses together “the absurdity, arbitrariness and rigidity of policies that have characterized the government’s public health and political programs since the onset of the pandemic.” It seems we’ve reached the point where places are either moving toward living with Covid or still trying desperately to be rid of the disease completely. And here’s a better picture over time of some select countries. Germany isn’t officially pursuing a Zero Covid policy, but it has ramped up restrictions — especially for the unvaccinated — amid a surge of omicron cases. New Zealand has recently moved away from a Zero Covid approach (as has Australia and Singapore), leaving China as the last real holdout. Which approach should we be aiming for? In a recent poll, a majority of [scientists said they believed]( SARS-CoV-2 will wind up becoming endemic, meaning that the virus will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population. Half of them thought it’d be unlikely that the virus could be eliminated from some regions. That suggests that there will come a time when we’ll inevitably be forced to learn how to live with the virus without costly restrictions such as travel bans and social distancing. Therese Raphael and Sam Fazeli make the case that the time could be drawing near. After all, [we’re much better armed against the virus now]( that we have vaccines, effective treatments and a lot of natural immunity. While China has only recorded just over 4,600 Covid deaths, compared to the U.S.’s 860,000-plus fatalities, the nation has now ensnared itself in a trap it’ll struggle to escape. [Economic and human costs of the approach are now becoming apparent](: Port disruptions and citywide shutdowns are common, and in one city, at least two people have died and two women miscarried after they were barred from treatment by zealous enforcement of lockdown protocols. There is one good reason why China can’t make the same transition as other nations have, and that’s [vaccines](. Therese and Sam explain that researchers in Brazil reported that Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine was 50.4% effective at preventing severe and mild Covid-19 in late-stage trials, significantly less than other major vaccines. Omicron may be milder, but that seems largely driven by prior immunity, either from vaccination or infection. Letting omicron rip through a highly dense population could easily lead to overwhelmed hospitals. Of course, there's no guarantee that this is really the beginning of the end of the pandemic. On Friday, a “sub-lineage” of the omicron variant called BA.2 was designated by the U.K. Health Security Agency as [a variant under investigation](. It’s a reminder that policies will have to remain under constant review, and that we could still be vulnerable to new variants. Luckily, we may allow ourselves to feel optimistic that we won’t have to spend the whole of the rest of our lives worrying about new Greek letters. Lisa Jarvis explains that, instead of chasing one variant at a time, [we might soon have access to a pan-coronavirus vaccine.]( That means, if successful, the vaccine could provide protection from all existing, and future, variants of Covid, plus SARS, MERS and any new ones that might pop up. The bad news is that we may have to wait months or even years. Still, it’s something to get us through the dark months. More Covid Reading: - [This is why you caught omicron even though you were fully vaccinated](, says Faye Flam. - Anjani Trivedi says it’s time for [Hong Kong to have a Covid policy rethink. The current strategy has failed.]( More Data From Bloomberg Opinion [Peloton shows us that American consumers are totally over the pandemic](, says Robert Burgess. [But grocery shelves are empty again](. Andrea Felsted explains why. [Lower vaccination rates among working-age Americans have shifted Covid’s death toll](, says Justin Fox. Notes: To contact the author of this newsletter, email Lara Williams at lwilliams218@bloomberg.net. This is the Theme of the Week edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a digest of our top commentary published every Sunday. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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