Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

The answer seems to be :shrug: which is what I would think the answer would be right now.

From the middle of the article:

"Should reinfection prove commonplace, and barring a highly effective vaccine delivered to most of the world’s population, SARS-CoV-2 will likely become endemic"

And the closing sentence:

"A duration of immunity similar to that of the other betacoronaviruses (~40 weeks) could lead to yearly outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2, whereas a longer immunity profile, coupled with a small degree of protective cross-immunity from other betacoronaviruses, could lead to apparent elimination of the virus followed by resurgence after a few years. Other scenarios are, of course, possible, because there are many processes at play and much that remains unresolved."

Of course, no way to control coordinated mask wearing for 7 billion people simultaneously without decades of planning.

HIV has killed around 50 million over the past 40 years, and we know how to stop that but it is still endemic and will be for at least a century.

Is the general consensus that the virus would be eradicated if everyone wore a mask? Is it enough?

With so many people ignorant of the science, believing in wild conspiracy theories, being antivaxers and antimakers, of course it's going to become endemic.

It remains to be seen if most people will even get vaccinated if/when a safe and effective vaccine becomes available.

Even if people got vaccinated once, to actually eradicate COVID-19 they might have to get revaccinated multiple times, possibly over a span of years. We can't even get everyone to get flu shots. Getting everyone to get a new vaccine to a disease towards which there's so much disbelief will be even more difficult.

We eradicated smallpox, but that was a fluke. Take a look at the eradication efforts towards HIV, measles, and polio. Much more progress could be made on these fronts, but paranoia, ignorance, and long-held beliefs and behavior patterns stand in the way.

Even if COVID-19 itself is eradicated, something else to consider, that virologists have been pointing out, is that there are plenty of other coronaviruses in various animal species that could make the jump to infect humans, possibly causing another pandemic which is just as bad or even worse.

A major shift in thinking and priorites has to happen globally, on many different fronts to make humans less vulnerable to this kind of disease in the long-run.

This doesn't answer the question, merely tells us what we already know: not much