2022 end OR 2023 NOPE not going away anytime soon

I don't believe the scientists have changed their minds, they always knew it was a possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus would become endemic, much as H1N1 and H3N3 variants of the influenza virus have. The more people who are infected, and the longer that an outbreak goes, the higher the risk/potential for mutations to occur that are stable and increase either the transmissibility or virulence of the virus (and evade natural immunity or vaccines made against the original strains).

David Leonhardt had a great Twitter thread on this, that not only included this link below, but many other excellent sources for points he made.

The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means
A Nature survey shows many scientists expect the virus that causes COVID-19 to become endemic, but it could pose less danger over time.
Nicky Phillips, Nature | 16 February 2021

For much of the past year, life in Western Australia has been coronavirus-free. Friends gathered in pubs; people kissed and hugged their relatives; children went to school without temperature checks or wearing masks. The state maintained this enviable position only by placing heavy restrictions on travel and imposing lockdowns — some regions entered a snap lockdown at the beginning of the year after a security guard at a hotel where visitors were quarantined tested positive for the virus. But the experience in Western Australia has provided a glimpse into a life free from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. If other regions, aided by vaccines, aimed for a similar zero-COVID strategy, then could the world hope to rid itself of the virus?

It’s a beautiful dream but most scientists think it’s improbable. In January, Nature asked more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists working on the coronavirus whether it could be eradicated. Almost 90% of respondents think that the coronavirus will become endemic — meaning that it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come (see 'Endemic future').

“Eradicating this virus right now from the world is a lot like trying to plan the construction of a stepping-stone pathway to the Moon. It’s unrealistic,” says Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

But failure to eradicate the virus does not mean that death, illness or social isolation will continue on the scales seen so far. The future will depend heavily on the type of immunity people acquire through infection or vaccination and how the virus evolves.