I'm trying to picture this. In the US, something like 40% of the adult population is deemed vulnerable by virtue of age and/or health condition. What would their lives look like--for the past 20 months and for an indefinite period moving forward? I can imagine myself in locked-down isolation all this time--not with any pleasure, but at least it's conceivable. I honestly can't imagine how the country itself would function with another 90+ million in the same position.

Yes. My reference to other viruses was merely supposed to illustrate my point. Sounds like it failed to do so.

With all due respect, you live in an island country, relatively wealthy, easily-isolated from the rest of the world, which instituted some fairly draconian lockdowns quite early--including the one which forbids you to visit your son. Furthermore, your NSW government claims an adult vaccine rate well over 90%, which is something much of the world will never, ever achieve. Could that have something to do with those recently-stable rates of illness and death?

It's a far cry from letting COVID burn through the population until natural immunity is reached. If you'd like to know more about what THAT would look like, read up on places where it's been more or less allowed to happen--New York in the early days, maybe India more recently, parts of Brazil at one point, coastal Ecuador for a while...

Well, that's probably enough verbiage out of me for the night. Safe journeys to us all!