Covid-19 pandemic in 2022: What will happen this year?

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

By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson and Helen Thomson

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 …