The Atlantic Daily: COVID Will Surprise Us Again

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Imagine it: The sun is warm, the flowers are in bloom, and no one is talking about the coronavirus. After a bitter January, the country’s Omicron surge is receding, and—although COVID case rates are still much higher than they were last winter—it feels as if a pandemic lull is just around the corner.

Unfortunately, we’ve learned enough to know that we’re stuck with this virus for a while longer, and that it could catch us off guard at any moment.

• The virus is bound to surprise us again. Its “evolutionary leaps look like nothing else we’ve seen before,” Sarah Zhang writes. She offers three possible explanations for why SARS-CoV-2 behaves so differently from other viruses.
• Endemicity is meaningless. “What lies ahead is, still, a big uncertain mess, which the word endemic does far more to obscure than to clarify,” Katherine J. Wu and Jacob Stern argue.
• The hospital crisis isn’t going away. Ed Yong reports on the situation at one Chicago hospital, reminding us that “the staffing shortages that long preceded Omicron’s arrival will remain.”
• We still need to vaccinate millions of the youngest Americans. “The most optimistic timeline for the arrival of an under-5 vaccine has suddenly shrunk to just a few more weeks,” Katie writes, responding to yesterday’s surprising news that Pfizer is requesting emergency use authorization from the FDA for its shots for infants and toddlers.  

The rest of the news in three sentences:

(1) The U.S. will send 3,000 troops to Europe to bolster allies’ defenses amid fears that Russia will invade Ukraine.

(2) “Havana syndrome” could be caused by “pulsed electromagnetic energy,” a panel of experts found.

(3) CNN President Jeff Zucker resigned, saying he had failed to disclose a romantic relationship with a colleague.

Today’s Atlantic-approved activity:

Fight off the winter blues with Bravo’s Summer House, a low-stakes reality show set in the Hamptons. Kaitlyn Tiffany and Lizzie Plaugic attempt to explain the show’s appeal in their newsletter, Famous People.

A break from the news:

This is your brain on heartbreak.

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.