Dr. Jonathan Abraham, an Infectious Disease Specialist and Assistant Professor of Microbiology at Harvard Medical School, predicts that Omicron strain SARS-COV-2 will persist in the U.S.  as the dominant virus lineage until displaced by a variant with higher infectivity.

Abraham noted, “Essentially Omicron and its ‘children’ have evolved in a way that they could outcompete pretty much anything else that is out there in terms of transmission in a population that now has some degree of immunity from prior infection and vaccination.”  He added, “I think the only way Omicron will disappear is to be outcompeted by something drastically different.”

Dr. Abraham suggests that Omicron will be the last major variant of the virus to emerge and the incidence will eventually taper off as the U.S. population acquires a high level of immunity.