We just seem to lack some political will to be more expedient in declaring the pandemic endemic and herd immunity achieved. In any case, when I look at the same situation in Europe, there are plenty of countries that are in the same boat. Population antibody levels by now are higher than what was claimed as the threshold needed to avert disaster. We've all been doing that.
So it's insufficient to keep accepting "probably longer than idea." That is too vague and nebulous and allows too much to go wrong. Government has more power than you realize and its government imposing these "management tools" as a cudgel against free movement and liberty. The situation in Australia [2], for example, should alarm everyone - especially those on the side of granting the powers that be basically unlimited license to do whatever they want to solve this.
If the ship has sailed due to the antibodies, then what need is there for this vagueness?
[0] - https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...
"The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a “Don’t try this at home” label. The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19."
[1] - miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article253987048.html
"More than 80% of Americans have coronavirus antibodies acquired through infection or vaccination, according to a new study of over 1.4 million blood donations across the U.S."
[2] - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...
Please read this in its entirety and actually ponder it deeply.