I don't necessarily mean to a small amount of cases. I'm trying to wrap my head around what the next couple months will be looking like. It's not enough, but at least in my state the mask mandate is back everywhere and we're opening more testing sites/improving numbers at current sites. Our vaccination rate is also over 80%. The vaccine is widely available and easy to walk in and get.
The problem is still no mandatory lock down, not enough proper time off, and not all jobs pay workers (outside of PTO) who take off for covid related issues. Those are pretty big road blocks to number of cases going down.
Do these numbers ever go down to noticeable degree without proper measures in place? If not, I wonder what it'll take to get a real response again
It is difficult to say because controlling outbreaks depends on interventions and how infectious the disease is. Omicron is more infectious, so more difficult to contain. And the US is taking the most anemic measures yet in response to the outbreak. People saying it will die down soon due to running out of hosts are incorrect given even 1 million cases per day in a country of over 300 million that's only about half vaccinated. It'll take a couple months, at least, for that effect to matter.
For the curve to dip down to a base level more quickly, we'll need to see an increase in interventions: a reversal of "pro-work" public health policies, greater vaccination, lockdowns, closing restaurants and other shared indoor spaces.
The curve may level out or dip a bit in the coming weeks, but it's unlikely to crater. We need actual public health-focused policy intentions.
As an example, note that we never got delta under control. Even greater area under the curve than earlier waves, more severe disease, and it was only maybe petering out when omicron hit. Delta was accompanied by the weakest policy responses so far in the pandemic, outshined only recently with the sociopathic responses to omicron.