I wonder what the exit condition for the pandemic mode is, or even how we define "out of the pandemic". Vaccines have delivered a great success in blunting the sharp edge. Compare cases vs. deaths. I picked 4 countries with varied vaccination levels: Singapore (>85%), Austria (>60%), Israel (>60%) and Romania (>35%). Case spikes occur regardless of vaccination levels, death spikes are near extinct in areas with high vaccination. Yet there are still broad restrictions: mask mandates, social distancing, wfh, vaccine passports, partial lockdowns.

Caveat: there is a lot more to this data than meets the eye, but public health policies appear to be driven by broad numbers, so for the purpose of the "how does the pandemic mode end" conversation these curves are a reasonable starting point.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...