WHAT do you call a pandemic when it ends? Endemic. That’s not a joke. One scenario for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is for widespread immunity through vaccines or natural infection along with effective medication and upgraded health systems to bring serious or fatal cases to a minuscule number that Covid is no scarier than the common flu.

In that endemic stage, the virus is still around but no longer threatening enough to force the lockdown of a whole country, continent or planet. And maybe, just maybe, the pandemic could be headed in that direction, possibly pushed along by the latest global panic-spreader, the fastspreading Omicron variant first reported in South Africa and now in two dozen or more countries.

Compared with the virulent Delta strain, Omicron has about double the mutations in the spike protein, with which Covid germs link to human cells for replication.

With that, the new variant is three times as infectious as other strains, and its rapid spread across the globe just over a week after it made headlines confirms its rapid transmissibility.

But the potentially good news is Omicron may be much less virulent than Delta, with doctors in South Africa and Israel saying the latest “variant of concern” designated by the World Health Organization seems to cause mild symptoms. None of the nearly 60 cases found in the European Union as of last week were serious or fatal.

Now, if Omicron spreads much faster than other variants, but does not often cause grave illness or death, then a less virulent mutation could displace Delta and other strains and become dominant. Mild symptoms help make Omicron spread even more, since its carriers might not know they’re infected and would not isolate, get tested, take precautions and alert others to their illness.

Moreover, if the new variant is also more resistant to the body’s immune response, then it would further forge ahead of rival strains eradicated by antibodies, leaving it to spawn with little competition. Notably, majority of the more than 130 Omicron cases in Britain are fully vaccinated, seeming to show antibody resistance.

Of course, let us be cautioned that doctors and researchers across the globe are still intensively investigating Omicron, and it would take more weeks before solid findings emerge. The variant could still prove to be just as or even more virulent than Delta — God forbid. But if it is actually mild yet three times more infectious, then it might indeed bring the pandemic to an endemic ending.

Watch out on Friday Which brings us to the other V-word to worry about: violence. Particularly the threat of possible conflict in Asia amid the intensifying geopolitical rivalry between America and China.

That test of wills and weaponry just got major saber-rattling boosts in recent months, with several naval exercises by the United States and its allies, including five-nation naval and