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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

This past week really feels like the inverse of the week of March 12, 2020. Over that week the reality of the pandemic hit home hard. Tom Hanks got it. The NBA was canceled. NYC shut down and ultimately the country went into lockdown. It felt like overnight our entire world and reality changed. Well like I said, this past week felt like that but just the opposite, our world rapidly opened up again. On May 13 the CDC said that fully vaccinated people didn’t need to be masked even indoors. Almost immediately you could see the change. In NYC lots of people were now wearing masks on their chins or arms while outside. Inside people were still masked but in PA that changed. We are looking for a car and caravan and at all the dealers no one is wearing masks. They will (mostly) put them on for you if you want but it’s almost surreal to be indoors at a business and people are without masks. The weirdest part was when the broker extended his hand to shake ours. Haven’t done that in over a year and I recoiled slightly. On May 19, NY lifted almost all restrictions. Businesses and restaurants could operate at full capacity. All city workers went back to the office and the subway is back to 24 hours. And yesterday we went to a wedding. In person. And there was not a single mask in sight! There was also lots of hugging and it felt normal. I think there are some things we thought would stick around after it’s all over and I’m sure there will be for different people but it was actually breathtaking how quickly it feels we’ve transitioned to after (here in the US that is - elsewhere it’s not like this at all, right now my family in SA is gearing up for their third wave)