It’s always darkest just before the dawn.

That’s an old cliche, but one that has become relevant again as omicron’s massive infection waves are increasingly being seen around the world as heralding the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A combination of factors — ranging from high vaccination rates to the aforementioned variant’s seemingly less-lethal impact and simple fatigue with bad news — have resulted in numerous countries removing some, if not all, of the coronavirus-related restrictions that had been in place over the past two years.