new COVID normal

This is what awaits a person who is coming out of lockdown, either a government-imposed lockdown or a self-imposed lockdown, because it was a fact that the Rona produced a panicky reaction in some individuals who responded by severely curtailing all activities deemed risky. We emerge from either lockdown to find a world that is not the same as it was before.  For starters we bump elbows in greeting and we are all wearing masks. We now have to calculate which state is ok with travellers from which other state, and produce paperwork at borders and airports that was never needed before.  Our celebrations and ceremonies have shrunk and we have a new appreciation for the local.  We buy online much more than we used to, and we are all now familiar with ZOOM and FaceTime and Skype, previously the realm of anxious grandparents contacting children and grandchildren overseas. And we are all uncertain about the future, finding it difficult to make plans that don’t have a huge question mark over them.  This is how the new COVID normal is going to be for some time.