Covid infections are up by 68%, over the past two weeks, in my county

[wnylib]

37. Isn't it possible that there might be an advantage

to the omicron variants knocking out the other ones? As long as it remains dominant due to its high transmission rate, that makes it more possible to develop a vaccine that specifically targets omicron. Once a vaccine is available for omicron and a couple of its variants, the vaccines might be more effective, even against new omicron variants, because of their related genetic structure.

Just trying to be hopeful.

I also wonder if the continual development of new strains has happened in other viral pandemics. It's not unusual for a pandemic to last 2 years and to come and go in waves during that time. It happened with the 1918 and the 1957-58 flu pandemics. But we didn't have the ability to map them genetically like we can today. Covid is in its 3rd year now, but that's partly due to increased global commerce and travel today. A virus today can spread farther and faster than in the past, infecting more people and creating more opportunities for variants to develop.