Is the WHO Saying the Pandemic Is Almost Over?

It sort of looks that way.

Today, something happened that has been such a rare occurrence I can count the number of times I’ve experienced it since March 2020 on both hands: The lead story of The New York Times featured good news.

“Omicron’s Spread Could End ‘Emergency Phase’ of Pandemic, Top W.H.O. Official Says,” reads the story, and while there are plenty of “to be sure”s and “caution is still warranted,” the story should probably come with trumpets and tubas. The key section is right in the lede:

The pandemic that has convulsed the world for more than two years is entering a “new phase” globally, and the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus offers “plausible hope” for a return to normalcy in the months ahead, the World Health Organization’s top official in Europe said in a statement released Monday.

There have been several false dawns during the pandemic, and if you go back and look at many of pieces I’ve written for this site, you’ll see me falling for just about all of them. January 2021 brought vaccines to your families, June 2021 was when thought we’d turned a corner, Thanksgiving 2021 was when families could get together again … and then Omicron and wiped so much of it out. That “emergency phase” is exactly how it has felt: Every time we thought…