It was evident almost from day 1 that COVID-19, caused by an efficiently spreading respiratory virus with an animal host, was with us for good. The goal of the public health campaign was not to somehow return the virus magically to bats but to tame the virus and shift its spectrum of illness to the mild side — all the while acknowledging that there would always be a baseline number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
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By repeatedly counseling the public with these facts early on and coupling it to actionable ways for people to learn how to develop the ability to COVID-19 risk calculate (e.g. get vaccinated, wear masks in high-risk situations, outdoors are safer than indoors, surface transmission is not common) the rise of omicron and the looming ubiquity of infections would not seem so startling.