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

<strong> This is a pop-up Covid testing place in Berlin, complete with charming tent and potted plant.</strong> June 9. Masks worn outdoors seem to be a thing of the past here. Walking to buy vegetables yesterday, I was the only person I saw masked. Even in the outdoor Turkish market, where they are still formally required, i saw more mouths than I did a month ago. (It’s interesting that the mouths of strangers have become a source of alarm.) <strong> I invited a senior colleague I like very much who is quarantining in Berlin to socially distant tea in a park</strong>. (She hasn’t replied, and I worry I was too forward.) <strong> Her quarantine is required because she flew in from the UK. The Delta variant is proving to be a serious contender there</strong>, despite their high vaccination rates. So Germany and France have put in travel bans</strong>. She herself is a German citizen, here to see her sibling’s newborn, so she was allowed in.<strong> She said it was heartbreaking seeing people turned away at the gate.</strong> <strong> The decision to shove Brexit through during the pandemic—« hard to understand » is the most restrained thing I can say about it.</strong> Germany trying to keep the Delta variant from getting up a head of steam here is understandable, though. They have half the vaccinated pop that the UK has, even if they are using Pfizer more than the less effective AstraZeneca. <strong> Berlin Cafes have opened outdoor seating, and no longer require you to present a negative COVID test to sit down.</strong> There are still pop -up Covid testing places everywhere—if you aren’t vaccinated, which is still most people, a negative test lets you dine indoors, or go to the gym, or even (!) go to the opera. Out walking<strong> I’ve seen a pop-up testing center in a lovely tent, out of the back of a car, at a stand that looked like a water ice stand in the park, and in several storefronts.</strong> Rapid tests have been available from Gorillas,, the grocery delivery company, for some time. I think it’s terrific. <strong> A few months ago it was impossible to get a test without potentially exposing yourself to COVID-19</strong> in the process– you could only get them done at a doctor’s office or in testing centers with very long lines. So you didn’t get tested unless for some reason you absolutely had to. I have a PCR test I ordered from Amazon when they were briefly available for something like 80 euro before they sold out, which I hung on to anxiously all winter in case I had to fly back. It was priceless then. Now, I hope, it’s nearly valueless, and can gather dust in the bathtub with the rest of my emergency stores. ...