1/ Why we are here 101.
People gain a certain amount of immunity from vaccination or infection.
Unmitigated spread and selection pressure allows COVID to mutate to evade immunity from vaccination or infection; 2/ think of it as a roadmap for COVID to follow.
Governments were told in 2020 that herd immunity was impossible, and that seasonality was not going to happen, but by removing all mitigation this is the path THEY are following.
A vaccine that confers sterilizing immunity

I started a state of the virus tweet at 4 this morning as we enter the 4th year. By 4:10 it was a 32 part tweet that was depressing and nothing anyone would want to read.
3 years ago we were in a zoom call talking about this and I broached this would be a 5 year event. 2/ It was obvious COVID was airborne after Webasto, Lombardy and the Washington choir practice outbreak, but this fact has still to be acknowledged by the powers that be. We heard early about second infections which should not have been ignored nor should it have been a surprise

1/ So why are we going to be lifting restrictions while case counts, even though on a downward trajectory, are extremely high even while we are missing up to 80% of infections?
COVID is no longer a novel virus. With vaccinations, and infections we have immunity in the community 2/ it's not durable or robust and we will see many reinfections, *it is a coronavirus*, but we are in a vastly different position than we were in 2 years ago.
We have more effective vaccines and treatments just around the corner, and this has also gone into the thinking.

1/ Imagine a disease that was as transmissible as measles, with more potential for severity, and long term risks we don't completely understand. Now imagine if acquired immunity from this disease was far less durable than that one gets from a measles infection. Add in far less 2/ effective vaccines than MMR (for now) and governments reaching a point where they do not want to introduce any further mitigation measures and you would have a basic script for one helluva Hollywood thriller.
This is our reality now.