Yes. It’s been relatively quiet since winter because there haven’t been any new strains, but that just changed. One of the new variants that appeared (in Asia and Australia soon to be everywhere else) is more contagious due to better ACE2 binding, which is main reason why this virus is so dangerous and has so many long term effects. Every organ in our body has ACE2 receptors and once it’s in our bloodstream covid can cause damage to all of them, or get in places that are hard for our immune system to clear, leading to a persistent infection. It will never be “just a cold” until we can develop a vaccine or otherwise prevent it from entering our bloodstream.

I’ve heard there is some evidence that with multiple vaccinations and/or infections, that people are better able to fight off new variants, which may lower the risk, but nothing definitive. It sounds more like hopium to me. Last I checked the disability rate is still shooting up.

Here’s a chart tracking covid hospitalizations the past year and a half in Australia. There is a new covid wave every 4-6 months, which tracks with about how long immunity to the virus lasts and the rate of mutation. For the past few years it’s been on track to be about 4x as damaging as some of the worst flu years, and that’s probably about as good as it’s going to get.

The blue line is covid. Orange is the flu. For every major flu wave, there are four covid ones.