Covid-19: What can we expect from the pandemic in 2022?

In the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, expect more variants, lower death rates and some continuing restrictions

Health 4 January 2022

By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson and Helen Thomson

Theme park visitors show their covid passes in France, July 2021

SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty Images

While the pandemic is unlikely to fully end in 2022, we can hope to see some positive changes: more vaccine coverage, improved treatments and reduced mortality. But mitigation measures, such as mask wearing and social distancing, will remain crucial for controlling outbreaks and restricting the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead on covid-19 at the World Health Organization (WHO), dislikes the phrase “learning to live with the virus”. She says: “I don’t think we …