The Omicron variant has been variously touted by pundits and experts alike as a possible key out of the pandemic and into an endemic stage of COVID, and talk of being able to "live with COVID like the flu" is everywhere right now.

In 2021 alone, as Bay Area News Group notes, COVID killed eight times as many Americans as influenza did in the 2017-18 season, which was considered the worst flu season in a decade.

And the Omicron variant, while less deadly, is still making many people very sick — and in one week alone this month, Omicron killed three times as many people as died in the worst week of the 2017-18 flu season.

Here in the Bay Area, deaths from COVID have, largely, dropped off a cliff, likely thanks to high rates of vaccination and boosters — despite still extremely high rates of Omicron transmission.

After the holiday weekend on Tuesday, for instance, Bay Area counties recorded over 45,000 new cases of COVID, but zero new deaths.

The next stage will be, Willis says, largely psychological.