I think that it would be possible to write very similar articles about any other type of seasonal flu or cold virus, if we had the data available. It is important to remember that what made COVID such a dangerous virus was that it was significantly different from any virus that humans had been exposed to, making everyone highly susceptible, allowing it to expand in pandemic proportions. As the virus has become endemic in a large part of the world, it continues to accumulate mutations and we expect to see seasonal waves. But there is no reason to believe that this particular virus presents a bigger threat than any other common endemic virus.
I suspect that the reason why we still see waves of articles like this one is because a lot of people have invested a good amount of money into COVID-related infrastructure, they are interested in continuing pushing the narrative of COVID being a serious threat to human life through the media.
Don't get me wrong - the research itself is amazing. Tracking the evolution of a virus as it moves through a population in such fine detail is only possible because of the testing infrastructure that we have now, and the general public's willingness to come donate their viral samples. Having the ability to do this type of research at this scale for even more viruses would be great.