yeah, shit is getting weird. i guess we're about to enter that phase where covid is like the flu. stuff doesn't move at the same speeds, but i guess all countries will evt. open up. since there are a couple more vaccines and now even medication coming out soon, i guess the overall sentiment is that the pandemic is going endemic and manageable without stuff like lockdowns.
it just won't happen at the same time everywhere and of course will be done differently.
in germany the rules are pretty dumb, too. as in paradoxical. you can do whatever if you are boostered without getting tested, even though it's clear now that the current vaccines don't really prevent infection. so boostered people can theoretically spill it around unknowingly as long as they don't get tested and maybe find out that they have. generally there are now several tiers of (non-)privileges you have according to vaccination status. and they also halved the time you are seen as immunized from 6 months to 3 over night on the weekend, so on saturday a great deal of people had suddenly no official immunization anymore, had to get tests for their shopping or to go to a restaurant, or couldn't go to their soccer games. and that pissed a good deal of people off.
unfortunately the new government seems as clueless as the last, even though the new health minister seems to be more qualified than the last. the pandemic is also a great excuse for our new government to not do any other work. minimum wage is getting raised, but they will do it at the end of the year, even tho for the people it would be way better to hurry that up.
projects for a greener/more environmentally friendly economy, weed legalization, reform of healthcare and welfare systems are all postponed until whenever, because our government says it can't do anything besides handling the pandemic. but the states are actually doing what they want anyways, and it seems we got our version of a biden administration that seems a bit nicer than the last, but seems to get nothing done just the same or forfeited all the good ideas they came up with to win elections just to do bare minimum. of course there is the ukraine crisis now as well.
i hope this is the last really bad wave of covid, but i'm still bracing myself for one or two more years of this madness.