One of the brutal truths of the coronavirus pandemic is that every time we think we are glimpsing daylight at the end of the tunnel, a new variant comes along to knock us back. Hot vax summer was upended by delta, and now omicron has reached us just in time for the holidays and just after children aged 5 to 11 reached the possibility of being fully vaccinated. (Or what counted as fully vaccinated until omicron, anyway.) Neither the Biden administration nor most of the public that’s planning Christmas travel has an appetite for a lockdown: air traffic is double what it was at this time in 2020. People are planning holiday gatherings, omicron is here, and the question is what the results will look like. Read more