So what do you guys see down the road this year in terms of Covid? I've read a story recently that the next variant may be a combo mutation of Delta and Omicron.
From my perspective, the biggest thing we know vs. this time last year is....there's no way to predict how future variants will behave. If we get a completely new variant that behaves significantly different (i.e. Omicron, much less severe but much more transmissible) again, it will basically void any educated guesses.
Last year we had that happen twice. Delta was more transmittable than Alpha and the other existing variants, and pushed them all out. It was slightly less lethal than Alpha and the previous variants, but that effect was negligible when it was infecting at such a higher rate. The US as a whole actually avoided a much worse Delta wave by having it hit in the summer vs. the winter, where the main seasonal stimulus is across the South, not the entire country. My predictions for last summer were correct only in the sense of where/generally when I expected a seasonal wave to occur. I didn't expect the strongest wave yet across much of the region, and was badly wrong on that.
Then Omicron came along, which was much less severe (60-90% less severe than Delta, depending on which estimate) but obviously much more easily transmitted than Delta. It was so easily transmitted that it produced a strong wave everywhere, regardless of what seasonal stimulus was taking place in the background. I mention that, because now that the main wave of it has passed, I expect that we'll see a resurgence of cases when the next seasonal stimulus kicks in (provided another new variant doesn't takeover before then).
Much of Europe had their Omicron wave, decreased, and are now increasing again. I think this can be attributed to two things. 1). BA.2 (a slightly more transmittable version of Omicron) has become dominant across the continent 2) Europe experiences a spring seasonal stimulus. Cases were rising this time last year as well. I suspect that we'll see a similar effect in the next few weeks in the US, primarily in the northeast US. Southeast Canada, parts of the NE, and Michigan in particular had a really strong wave when Alpha took over last spring, and I think we'll see a similar effect when BA.2 becomes dominant here. I don't think we'll see a nationwide spring wave though.
Past that, I think it'll mainly depend on what variant comes next. If Omicron remains dominant, we'll see another wave this summer across the same areas that had a Delta wave. It should be a weaker wave, but that's 4-5 months down the road, no telling what will be dominant by then.