If Ash Barty gets to the Wimbledon final, she’ll play before a full house – maskless – of 23,000.
This Wednesday 65,000 people, including Prince William – again not wearing masks – will be at Wembley Stadium screaming and cheering at the big football match to see if England will get to the Euro Championships finals, the first time in 55 years.
This week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to reveal plans to ditch the mandatory use of masks, do away with contact tracing and drop social distancing guidelines from July 19 – not that a lot of people are taking notice of the rules any more.
Music festivals will be allowed, people will be permitted to go into a pub and order at the bar.
And the automatic home isolation of anyone who is pinged on the contact tracing app as having been near someone with the virus will stop.
Yet on Friday Britain had nearly 30,000 new Covid-19 cases.
On a per head of population basis, that’s the equivalent of having around 10,000 cases in Australia.
The virus has not gone away, yet the country is feeling euphoric and celebratory.
The shackles are off. The reason? Vaccinations.
Britain’s uptake and smooth rollout of the vaccination program has been astonishing.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is a huge source of pride – witness the standing ovation that broke out spontaneously to acknowledge one of the creators, Dame Sarah Gilbert, when she was introduced at Wimbledon last week.
When Britons have been called up for their inoculations – an easy process that gives people no choice about which vaccine they are given – they just stick out their arm in places as diverse as the Science Museum and Westminster Abbey.
The result is that 85.5 per cent of adult population has had its first dose and nearly 70 per cent is fully vaccinated.
Covid-19 cases in hospitals – even with the more virulent Delta variant raging – have plummeted and deaths are relatively low.
Where once the high caseload of the virus would have resulted in many hundreds of daily deaths, now it is in single figures.
The number of cases is so irrelevant, they no longer make headline news.
Britons have had a gruelling time during the past 15 months: deaths attributed to the coronavirus are near to 130,000 and the lockdown measures have been so severe – with even cancer treatments paused – that the health ramifications will be realised only in the years to come.
There were no hugs of family members, and dark days when people had to farewell their loved ones through an iPad call. The funerals were so small and desperately sad.
But all through the grim days there was a sense of getting on with life. This cultural stoicism has contributed to an acceptance that the virus will smoulder at various levels for decades.
Under the “freedom day” plans, the British government has acknowledged that removing the countermeasures will result in a further uptick of Covid-19 cases by as much as 26 per cent.
But that’s a price Britain is prepared to accept to avoid further disruption to businesses, schools and public services.
Downing Street says it is time for the public to start learning to live with Covid-19.
The truth is, however, that the government is catching up with the public expectations.
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