Omicron is a costume rehearsal for the subsequent pandemic.

When scientists discovered the enormously mutated Omicron variant of the coronavirus remaining month, it prompt an eerily well-known chain of events.

fitness consultants held somber news conferences that raised extra questions than solutions. officers imposed trip bans that very probably got here too late. Virus trackers stuffed in their maps because the variant became stated in nation after country. And the relaxation of us waited, with increasing unease, to be trained greater concerning the risk we were facing.

The same sequence unfolded basically two years in the past when the radical coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, changed into first discovered. In these early weeks of 2020, the U.S. proved to be woefully unprepared for the challenges ahead, beginning with essentially the most basic of projects: detecting the virus.

These screw ups were neatly chronicled, and Omicron is one more sign that the pandemic, which has now claimed the lives of nearly 800,000 americans, is not over.

but Omicron is additionally a dress rehearsal for the subsequent pandemic. The work before us now — detecting, tracking and slowing the unfold of a health probability we don't wholly bear in mind — is an identical work that can be required to cease a future outbreak in its tracks.

The analogy is not ideal. When Omicron arrived, scientists had already developed vaccines and treatments for the virus and have been on high alert for brand spanking new variations. The next pandemic might also include much less warning.

Omicron's emergence is an opportunity to take stock of each the features we've made and the methods through which we're nevertheless falling short. it's additionally a call to motion: whatever progress we've made is not ample.