IMO Summer is a bit optimistic to be calling anything "normal," but I broadly agree we're near the end. Maybe by Fall or Winter we can hang out in bars again without feeling like we're killing somebody. In either case, now is not the time to give up. A few more months and we'll start seeing things ease up, I think. But we won't get there if we make things worse now. It sucks. Stay strong. Do what you can.
> But we won't get there if we make things worse now.
I have seen this claimed a lot, but is it really true? In some countries the authorities ended restrictions (or ostensibly maintained restrictions but stopped enforcement of them) because the population simply wasn't observing them. In those cases just "giving up" really worked in terms of the majority of people being able to get back to normal socializing.
The studies that have been done have shown that whatever benefits that lockdowns may have had were far outweighed by the toll they've taken on mental health and the economy. Short of literally locking everyone in their houses for 2-3 weeks (including essential workers) lockdowns just feel like they're doing something.
In the US, it's probably going to be more like late summer/early fall for truly widespread vaccination at which point, I have trouble believing things don't open back up because at that point, people are going to be "We've done what we can. F' it. We're not continuing like this indefinitely."
But, truth be told, come late spring especially younger people are going to be out and about and restrictions are going to start to be widely ignored even if they're still officially in place.
