Early January is typically a big time for Oscar campaigns but the Omicron variant has events scrambling, postponing or cancelling. (Rumor is that an announcement of Sundance going all virtual is imminent.)
Patrick Ryan collected some thoughts about all of this from pundits (including yours truly) at USA Today so check it out. One of the things I mentioned to him that wasn't included since the article is more about what's happening rightnow is that I'm hopeful that the Oscars themselves will go on as planned. When they first announced the date for the tail end of March, it felt overly cautious. Though it seems like a million years ago the Parasite Oscars were in early February! Turns out the Academy was savvy not to try to jump back to previous timetables immediately! That extra padding they built in this time should help avoid another delay.