For most Americans, including people of the Southern Alleghenies region - Blair, Cambria, Somerset, Bedford, Huntingdon and Fulton counties - life is returning slowly but steadily to the way it was prior to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Seeing a person wearing a mask is much less common, pessimism about COVID-19 is giving way to increased confidence that the battle against the prolonged scourge is on the verge of being won, and that refinements to the vaccines developed so far will continue to make a COVID resurgence by way of a deadly new variant much less likely.
Let's hope so. However, the three words "not so fast" really are what remain most apropos at this time, considering the unanswered questions persisting regarding the origin of the coronavirus and the troubling uncertainties about what might lie ahead.
The uncertainties list is not short, according to a lengthy report in last Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. In fact, that list also is frightening - potentially encompassing much more than months or a couple of years.
Even some generations long into the future might experience ill effects from this virus and its variants.
"It's going to take a long time before we know what the total impact is across our entire lifespan," said Lynn Goldman, an epidemiologist and dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. "Way too many people (still) are dying from it."
Federal data reveal that an average of about 400 reported deaths a day have occurred in the United States over the past six months - a statistic too troubling for a health nemesis that too many people erroneously believe is on its way out.
A similar observation can be "planted" regarding COVID-19 hospitalizations.
For the week that ended March 2, such hospitalizations dropped to some 3,200 a day.
True, that number is much lower than the 6,700 hospitalizations a day recorded in early January and the peak of 22,000 cases a day recorded last winter. However, the hospitalization number, like the daily death toll, remains deeply troubling for an adversary supposedly facing imminent defeat.
Consider this quote from the Journal article: "Some researchers think a reservoir of virus in the body is triggering chronic inflammation, resulting in long Covid, defined by the World Health Organization as the continuation of symptoms three months after infection, which can't be explained by another diagnosis, and last for at least two months. Some suspect an autoimmune response to COVID-19. Others are looking at dormant viruses reactivated by COVID-19."
According to the Journal, a 2022 study in Nature Medicine, which explores the latest translational and clinical research news, found that patients at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities who had repeated bouts of COVID-19 were found to be at higher risk of pulmonary, cardiovascular and kidney problems up to six months later than people who had been infected only once.
It does seem that it might be premature for those scientists studying the coronavirus to be declaring "all clear" when there is so much uncertainty about how the virus will behave, the path of its mutations, as well as its many possible long-term effects.
Perhaps an annual COVID-19 shot someday will be the best weapon to protect against serious disease. But what if it isn't?
"All clear" might be farther away than most people can imagine.