The world's turning a new leaf? "It's time to get ready..."

The AP agency reminds that, when the pandemic started, Spain introduced a three-month lockdown, during which even children were not allowed to go to the park. The strictest measures have been created and implemented so that the Spanish health care system would not collapse.
Now, two years later, Spain is preparing to turn a new leaf and adopt a completely different approach in combating coronavirus. However, it should be noted that this is a country with a very high vaccination rate.
It is an approach that consists of treating the pandemic as an emergency, but that the disease is due to the fact that it will remain with us. Portugal and Britain think similarly, according to the AP.
At the heart of the idea is to move from a "crisis model" to a "control model", meaning that COVID-19 is approached and treated like any endemic disease, such as the flu virus or smallpox.
The argument of the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is that now is the right time for that, because the omicron variant has shown that it is less deadly than the delta variant. He said that these changes will not be able to be implemented before the omicron "protrudes", but it is certainly necessary for the world to start preparing for the post-pandemic scenario.
On the other hand, the WHO says that it is too early to think about it, emphasizing that there are no clear criteria, yet, for COVID-19 to be declared an endemic disease.
Leading American epidemiologist Dr Anthony Fauci believes that one should not go to the "endemic phase" as long as the coronavirus is a disease that disrupts normal life.
The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention does not look favorably on the Spanish proposal either, considering it possible, but "on a long stick".