After having been virtually grounded for the past two years, I flew to New York last week. I was met with quite a few surprises on the journey, starting from my arrival at San Francisco International Airport. There, masks were required, but the flight was full.
When I arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, it was bustling. In the evening I went out for a meal, and the restaurants were all full: Some even had lines of customers waiting to get in.
People were required to wear masks at all times, but it had the appearance of being a mere formality; people rubbed shoulders with others, and from the voices and the accents I heard, I would guess that the majority of visitors were European.
In the street outside the Empire State Building there was a tent every 10m or so offering free COVID-19 tests, but there were few takers.
In the evening, I went down to Broadway, which was bustling, and nearby a sea of concertgoers was descending on Carnegie Hall. Everyone was required to wear a mask at all times, and before they were allowed in they were asked to show evidence of having received three vaccines.
The air could have been thick with SARS-CoV-2, but nobody seemed to mind.
Before I had left Taiwan, I made sure to get a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose. I told the doctor that I was going to New York and wanted to make sure I was protected, and they nodded their head in approval.
On my third day in the city I got a bit of a sniffle in the evening — I guess there was no avoiding it — but it had gone by the time I woke up the next day, and I felt right as rain once more. I went on with my trip as planned.
Compared with New York, the restaurants in California were all open, but they were not as packed. I also noticed that many customers preferred to take out their orders rather than eat in.
In that way, you could say that California is a bit like Asia, with everybody still monitoring the situation, still wary.
New York on the other hand was more like Europe, where people have come to just accept that the virus is here.
People are everywhere in the subway and in restaurants as before the COVID-19 pandemic, except that now everyone is wearing a mask. Office life has also returned to normal.
Everyone seems to be paying less and less attention to the number of confirmed cases; so long as there are not too many people with severe symptoms putting a strain on the medical system, nobody seems to care all that much.
The virus is now in its fourth wave, but the vaccines and accumulated antibodies are keeping the worst effects at bay, and life has pretty much returned to normal. Lockdowns are a thing of the past, and the focus is on vaccines and developing antibodies.
People are, after all, social animals, and the economy needs to continue moving.
Mike Chang is an accountant.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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