(FINANCIAL TIMES) - By some accounts, the season finale of the pandemic approaches. Omicron appears to be less severe than the Delta variant. Some of this will be down to immunity built up through vaccination and infection; research also suggests the variant prospers more in the upper airways than in the lungs. Accordingly, hospital stays are shorter and fewer patients require intensive care.

That has framed the belief that Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is settling into the background alongside other relatively benign coronaviruses that mostly induce symptoms of the common cold.