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 ¡ª ranging from high vaccination rates to the aforementioned variant¡¯s seemingly less-lethal impact and simple fatigue with bad news ¡ª 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.