In New Zealand, people are going to malls without masks and sharing popcorn with friends in movie theaters. In Australia, they are watching live theater and sports and seeing bands perform at packed concerts. Thai people in Bangkok are drinking inside busy bars and dancing, while in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, more than 130,000 gathered for one of the only Pride parades to take place in person this year.
"Pride was huge. There was a ton of people out," said Perry Truong, a 25-year-old English tutor who moved last year from the US, where there are currently almost 200,000 new COVID-19 cases each day, to Taiwan, where there hasn't been a new locally transmitted case of the coronavirus in more than 200 days. "It's really not in my mind at all," Truong said. "I don't feel anxious about catching the virus. I don't feel scared about not wearing a mask to public places. For lack of a better word, it's really normal."
"It feels weird," he added, "because I feel like when people talk about this in 10 years, they'll be like, 'Remember the pandemic?' and I'll be like, 'There was a pandemic?'"
The return to normalcy in these lucky countries — or as much as is possible in a global pandemic — was not miraculous, but hard-won. In New Zealand, the entire country endured one of the strictest and earlier lockdowns in March. In August, residents of Auckland, population 1.7 million, went back into lockdown for over a month after an outbreak there. The number of new cases that prompted the shutdown? Just 17. "Going hard and early is still the best course of action," said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who won reelection in a landslide in October thanks in part due to her handling of the crisis.
Australian officials, too, imposed a severe lockdown in the state of Victoria in June after a cluster emerged there, sparking hundreds of new cases a day. It lasted more than 100 days but the state has had zero new infections since the end of October.
Other countries like Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea never went into lockdown to tame the virus, instead relying on a mix of technological measures, such as extensive contact tracing and testing, as well as cultural practices, such as commonly accepted mask-wearing. "Even before COVID, whenever people were ill, just as an extra precaution they would wear masks on buses and trains," said Karmen Truong, a 26-year-old digital marketer in Taipei, "so when COVID happened, it wasn't really an issue."
While Americans may be looking to these countries with envy, they are looking back in horror. The spiraling situation here is huge news for people there, as they struggle to make sense of America's unique culture and politics. "I feel less critical of the whole situation [in America] because I know there's probably cultural differences in the US and people are more free-minded," said Dhangwattanotai, the Bangkok software developer. "But I hear my friend in the US say that some people don't believe it's a thing or that it's not that serious or they can get it and recover and it's fine. I think that's insane."
"I think we just don't get it," said Hayman, the Perth mother. "Maybe because we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but just the idea of traveling across the country and meeting in these big groups when it's just such a disastrous situation — the idea that it's all about yourself: 'I want to do that and I want to see my family!' Well, we haven't seen our friends or family from other states for almost a year. It's a bit like, What are you doing? Why would you put other people at risk like that? It's mind-blowing."
“There Was A Pandemic?” What Life Is Like In Countries Without COVID
COVID infections are low to nonexistent in several countries, where life looks practically normal. Some people even occasionally forget there’s a pandemic going on.
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