Overwhelmed hospitals is not a binary risk. Vaccines are shown to reduce cases of serious symptoms and hospitalization. Yes, even if everyone is vaccinated is

Overwhelmed hospitals is not a binary risk. Vaccines are shown to reduce cases of serious symptoms and hospitalization. Yes, even if everyone is vaccinated is possible for hospitals to still be overwhelmed if infections spread too quickly (hence things like distancing still being important), but even in that case, you’d have less people needing hospital attention that are unable to get it. The overall goal of our societies, as I see it, is returning to living our lives as normal and killing the fewest people in the process. Reducing hospitalization rates means that more exposure can safely happen before hospitals are at risk. When they come close to being overwhelmed, additional restrictions on gathering will probably need to be reemployed until the risk subsides again. These risks are also very local (more local than state) and personal. So it’s perfectly reasonable for the pandemic to “be over” for some where the risk is low, yet not for some where the risk remains high.