Cohesive politics. A soccer world cup trophy. Worldwide understanding of NFL. There are a lot of things America probably won’t be seeing again any time soon. One of them, unfortunately, is people freely (and safely) swarming the streets again.
In a move that celebrates a milestone for Australia, media outlet Complex recently shared a video of “what life is like with 0 locally acquired Covid cases.” The video depicts Australian office workers strolling around the streets, sans masks, and tells viewers “the state government encourages returning to offices from 14th December” and that “everyone is back at school in person (except universities).”
The video also points out “borders between states have/will be opened” and purports to have been taken “during lunch rush hour 8th December, Sydney Australia” by Instagram user Dana Wang, who is a “food and travel addict” from Sydney who “sometimes makes videos.”
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Wang’s personal account also shows passengers getting on and off trains, hanging out in food courts, crossing streets and eating in local cafes and shopping as recently as the 10th December, 2020. Underneath both videos, a range of rueful comments have tumbled in, ranging from, “Something the US won’t see for a long time” and “jealous” to “this looks like a movie it doesn’t seem real.”
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Others expressed their doubts America will see an improved situation any time soon (“Wish America could learn from other countries but we are so stubborn”). On the other hand, there were those that said they enjoyed working from home: “not gonna like [sic], not having to commute to work everyday has been pretty sweet.”
Further comments included:
“They did it without a vaccine.”
“Life could be like this if everyone wasn’t afraid.”
“This is what happens when everyone wears their mask.”
“See what happens when people listen and not complain about their ‘rights’ being taken away.”
“AMERICA COULD NEVER.”
“Wow that’s what a successfully run country is like.”
“USA can y’all listen!!!”
This shows just a smattering of the perspectives on show. At the time of writing the USA has recorded 16.3 million cases of COVID-19 and 299 thousand deaths. Worldwide 72.2 million cases have been recorded and 1.61 million deaths.
Australia has had 28,031 COVID-19 cases at the time of writing and 908 deaths.