You asked what life is currently like in other countries. I lived in New Zealand from March 2015 to July 2021 and am a permanent resident. I left New Zealand in July 2021 and returned to the US. My short story is here.
I am now barred from returning to New Zealand because I have no desire to be “fully vaccinated” for Covid-19. This is the reward for pouring my heart and soul (and two businesses) into the country for more than 6 years, after never once drawing in any significant way on its social services. (I only once visited a physician at urgent care for a sinus infection in 2016, and paid $100.)
Life in most of the US is far more normal than it is in NZ. I left NZ a month before the infamous lockdown over a single case, so I can’t currently fathom the extent of these mindless restrictions you have all been dealing with since then.
I travel from state to state as I desire (unvaccinated) and have driven roughly 20,000 km across the country since returning. Vaccine passports were only instituted in the US in large, left-wing cities where only 10% of the country’s population lives and are soon being reduced or removed even in those areas (at least for now).
I have only worn a mask perhaps a few times in 8 months. Granted, I don’t spend much time in large, left-wing cities. I mostly stick to rural and suburban areas where people are saner.
The entire world lost its mind in this pandemic but there is something particularly wrong with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in comparison to many other countries.
Let’s hope that because New Zealand is simply a bit behind on the pandemic timeline, the mass psychosis recedes into the distance. It will be too late for me after I’ve been financially flattened by the despots running the place, but at least the country will be saved for its citizens.