Ahooi from South Africa.

Just thought I would leave first hand information from SA.

It seems as though the Omnicron wave in SA is over. Schools are going back to being fully open. Last year my kids had to be one day on, one day off from school. Which was hellish.

We had a lot of restrictions. First hard lockdown when nobody knew what was going on with the virus. Everyone thought they were going to foam at the mouth and die like in the movies.

This did not happen.

Our economics in SA was hit hard. Tourism, entertainment and personal services sectors suffered the worst but a lot of businesses closed everywhere. For a country with a 33%+ unemployment rate this is truly awful.

But some people started their own businesses and thrived. Only people with an eye for taking initiative. Some others got some bailouts from the government's relief funding.

Our worst lockdowns included a ban on cigarettes and alcohol. Alcohol to stop the amount of casualties in ER to divert hospital staff to other sick patients. Cigarettes because of the social norm of sharing one cigarette to many people in some cultures.

Our adult population is now about 45% vaccinated and vaccinations have opened up for 12-17 years of age. Most professionals with jobs are vaccinated. Most companies have mandated that high-people-contact jobs have vaccinated staff.

Most people remained social but generally kept the gatherings smaller. I was at a kids party this weekend where we were about 30 people outside. 20 kids in a pool.

Our lockdowns started easing slowly. There is talk that the nation's state of emergency will end in February 2022. Which means our notoriously corrupt government will have less emergency funds to "mismanage".

Anyway, news from the ground, person to person news is that covid infections seem to be down, those infected generally mild. However, from the hospital worker, a lot of those that end up on life support and long-covid do end up dead. Over 90% of those ending up in this emergency situation are unvaccinated AND frail.

The horrible part about the machines is the bed sores because they cannot turn their patients while connected to the ventilator. They had patients with festering bed sores that would rot and reach the bone, it is unlikely that many of these people survive that level of sickness.

As with any other disease, these are almost always persons with co-morbidities. These people would have been vulnerable to dying if they caught pneumonia or something similar.

All in all, my opinion is that covid is becoming a diseased that while dangerous to some, is being managed. Whether you were vaccinated or gained herd immunity, the virus is on the downward trend. I believe that governments are each using their states of emergency to further their goals... that's what politicians do. As mentioned above, our use their positions to line their pockets. The problem is actually how bad they are at covering it up!

Anyway, another year from now I hope to have zero masks in the malls.

There are definitely no masks on the beach! Lol

I hope this information was useful and that it backs up a lot of what you are saying as well as giving you more information to work from.