translated from Spanish: How is “new normal” lived in leading vaccination countries?

In some countries, the future is here. And it is that, with the vaccination of a large part of its population, certain latitudes already pass the long-awaited “back to normal”.
Israel and the United Kingdom are the world’s leading countries in COVID-19 vaccination. The first has vaccinated, to date, more than 62% of its population. While the UK has done so with almost 50% of its inhabitants.
Thus, after long months of restrictions, daily life resumes its usual characteristics, and everything returns to (almost) as before.
“Relief”, “optimism”, “happiness” and “thank you” are the words that resonate most among the testimonies collected by DW of young Latin Americans residing in those countries, and tell their experience.
Israel: “new normality” is already a fact
“We’ve had classes again at the university, we have real-life work meetings, and in recent weeks, I’ve been sorry for it in crowded bars and restaurants with no masks or social estating,” says David Harruch, a young Colombian resident in Jerusalem, just 23 years old who has already been vaccinated.

“I laughed again with some joke from a co-worker at a meeting. He was missed by the truth. In Zoom the mood doesn’t exist,” he says.

“Living all these everyday experiences in the way we used to, is now a novelty,” he shares. “I hardly even remembered the pleasure of interactions with others on a day-to-day life,” he adds in dialogue with this medium. “I feel euphoric,” he says.
“It’s unbelievable. Everything returned to normal here,” says Gabriela Rodríguez Navarrete, born in Mexico City and based for 3 years in the Israeli city of Beerseba.
“Mass concerts are back, we can go to stadiums, gyms, restaurants and clubs, and it is no longer mandatory to wear masks in open spaces,” says the 27-year-old, inoculated for a month with both doses of the vaccine.
“I feel very happy, privileged and grateful to live in the country with the most immunized in the world,” he summed up with DW.
Similar is the feeling of young Mexican-Israeli Moses Benoloi Jinich, who especially values “re-greeting people with a hug,” and “visiting and going for a walk with my grandmother, who lives in a nursing home.”
“For me, COVID-19 is no longer a threat,” he argues, confidently, from the Israeli city of Petaj Tikva. But he knows full well that the global reality is another: “When I talk to my dad, who still lives in Mexico, I notice the difference,” he says to DW with concern.
Incipient “new normal” in the UK
On the European continent, meanwhile, the UK tops vaccination rates per capita. There, after a peak of deaths was reached in January, the death toll clearly began to fall.
“Vaccination in Scotland is going well,” gisella Burga Polo, born in the Peruvian city of Chiclayo and a resident of Scotland Dundee, says.
“More than 60% of adults living in this region of Tayside have received the first dose,” he says. “Right now people between the age of 45 and 49 are getting their shifts to be vaccinated,” he says.
“Being sure you’re going to get vaccinated soon is a relief,” he says. But, however: “Back to normal will not make sense, if you have lost a family member or friend along the way,” he says, still moved by the recent news of his uncle’s death in the Peruvian capital.
“I just hope that this global crisis will help us to learn and build more sustainable and fairer cities, and protect the environment, so as not to live this nightmare again,” he reflects.
The English capital, meanwhile, also goes through different phases of deconfination: progressively the permitted activities are increasing.
“Every day better,” brazilian Thiago do Nascimento describes the situation, arriving in London 14 years ago from his native Curitiba.
“I miss the nightlife in the clubs, which haven’t opened yet,” he says. “But more and more people are on the streets, we can go to bars, restaurants and travel,” says the young Brazilian bartender excitedly.
“I feel the desire of people to return to work and to go out on the streets freely,” adds do Nascimento, who is still waiting his turn to be vaccinated.
For their part, Ana Doldan and Emiliano Suárez Perín arrived from Argentina in Saint Andrews, Scotland, in the middle of last year, “in the middle of the pandemic”, they point out.
About their lives today, they say, “While we have not yet been immunized, we feel safer knowing that all of the older people around us are already vaccinated.”
“We’ve already been able to explore nearby places like Edinburgh, and we plan to travel to the Scottish Highlands in the summer,” dw says.
However: “We have a strange feeling knowing that in Latin America there are still people who are most at risk. We hope that instead of getting vaccines first from very young and healthy people, there will be a global effort to vaccinate those who need it most,” they point out.
“We can also give a message of optimism: with responsibility and with effective health policies, such as mass vaccination, there is a future,” they argue.

Original source in Spanish

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