Flutterby™! : End of the Pandemic

I've been struggling a lot with "what does the end of the pandemic look like?" and "when do we go back to normal?" and "when am I okay being indoors with other people, masked or unmasked?". At this point I've known enough people who've gotten breakthrough cases to mostly shrug it off. Yeah, it sucks for a few days, but I barely had any reaction to the vaccine so it's unlikely to be bad for me. And there's no data on whether it's commutative, but the immunity numbers for infected+vaccinated are spectacularly good, so if I'm gonna get infected too, why not get it while my immune system is supercharged and the strains are known.

I just watched a Zoom presentation by someone I know from square dancing, who's worked in public health, and he's talking about square dancing indoors with a cloth mask. And my first reaction is "DUDE!?!", but as I watch California pay lip service to masks... well...

Anyway, I'm still staying masked indoors, and generally being a hermit. But I'm wondering what the end game looks like.

The end of the pandemic will not be televised BMJ 2021; 375 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-068094 (Published 14 December 2021)

History suggests that the end of the pandemic will not simply follow the attainment of herd immunity or an official declaration, but rather it will occur gradually and unevenly as societies cease to be all consumed by the pandemic’s shocking metrics. Pandemic ending is more of a question of lived experience, and thus is more of a sociological phenomenon than a biological one.