I live in an Australian state that has largely been shut off to the rest of the country, and of course, our entire country has been largely shut off from the world. So, until this week (we opened borders Monday), we've really lived quite freely. Our premier still posts a daily update of case numbers, deaths etc ... it feels a bit out of touch now that we are coming on three years of living with this, to be honest, and perhaps reporting severe cases or hospitalisations is more realistic. We've only recorded seven deaths in the state the entire time, for the record.
I read a lot of overseas news and chat with friends, and I am always interested in reading these threads here because I feel like what you are all living will soon be our reality. We've been in a bubble - a bubble that I'm grateful for as I have a teenage son with a severe respiratory illness. He is well known at the emergency department and has regular appointments at the hospital with the respiratory team, who have been amazing. He is on immunosuppressant drugs (basically, his white blood cells have been attacking his respiratory system and stomach lining even - missed for years as it is pretty rare, and even more rare in kids). So, as we are now moving to 'living with covid', I have no idea where this leaves him and whether the drugs will make him more vulnerable than he would be untreated.
Our state is now open, and I suspect we will know more about what 'living with Covid' really means within a month. Masks are off here for now, though we wore them for months. We are at about an 80% double vax figure. Boosters are starting to roll out if you are due (more than five months since the last shot). We check-in everywhere we go with an app that scans our details - but, given the fact that if you are a close contact you have to quarantine for two weeks regardless of a negative test, I hear of young people saying they just won't be checking in as they can't afford to miss work. This morning, we had a situation where an entire planeload of predominantly vaccinated people was put in two weeks' quarantine because there was one positive case. Literally, half an hour ago, that was overturned to only be those close to the positive case due to a huge media uproar.
I didn't answer the questions in points because we've been going to bars, restaurants, and living life fairly normally ... until now. Let's see where we are in a month or two!