"Omicron makes it clear that there will be no going back to the unselfconscious sociability that used to define normal life. One explanation for the many mutations that make up Omicron was that the variant was created when the virus moved from a human to an animal host and then moved back, transformed. Another news story reported on deer that were infected by the virus but didn't show any clinical symptoms, which is to say, they weren't sick. We would give a lot to be those deer."