But the snag is that different countries have yielded different results.

When the big reopening happened in some countries, the number of new cases actually fell, while in the Netherlands, it rose by more than 500 per cent.

There is a raft of factors which affect whether opening up into a "COVID normal" society will be the continuation of a nightmare - perhaps leading to further closing of doors - or if it will result in an easier life, albeit not like the old normal.

But some rules are cast-iron. They will remain way into the future.

Vaccination cuts the chances of you being infected, and of you becoming ill if you are infected. And masks aren't perfect, but they cut the chances of you being infected and of you infecting others. Similarly, the further away from people you stay, the better the chances of staying uninfected.

But there are still lessons from the different experiences, and hints about how we might choose to go, both as a city and as individual people.

"The ACT could be lucky with no major increases in case numbers, or there could be a big rise," according to Professor Adrian Esterman of the University of South Australia. He's one of Australia's most respected epidemiologists, so if he has that degree of uncertainty, the future can't be clear.

He does not foresee a huge rise in people being so seriously ill that they need hospital, though. Vaccination helps protect against the symptoms, though not so much against catching the disease itself.

"The message is still: if you aren't fully vaccinated, go and get the jab now," Professor Esterman said.

There are 50,000 cases a day in Britain, albeit with a population three times that of Australia. That works out at 435 cases for every 100,000 people, and at that rate in Canberra, there would be between 1000 and 2000 new cases a day, compared with the current handful (on Tuesday, it was 24).

The British are living a normal life like there's no tomorrow - drink is being consumed in crowded pubs, public transport is jammed full, people - even those fearful of catching COVID - are going about their business.

But infections are going through the roof. Serious illness, though - people feeling badly ill and needing hospital treatment - is not rising as fast as it did in the first stage of the pandemic last year.

There are different theories about why the number of British cases is rising so fast, compared with some countries on the other side of the English Channel.

The population may be less immune to COVID because people got vaccinated earlier, according to Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College in London.

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He told the BBC: "We know that gradually immunity wanes over time after you've had that second dose, so how early we were means we are a bit more vulnerable."

Britain also relied more on the AstraZeneca vaccine. "While that protects very well against very severe outcomes of COVID, it protects slightly less well than Pfizer against infection and transmission, particularly in the face of the Delta variant," he said.

And some of the British seem to have thrown care to the wind.

"Most western European countries have kept in place more control measures, vaccine mandates, mask-wearing mandates, and tend to have lower case numbers - and certainly not case numbers which are going up as fast as we've got."

The upshot is that cases will probably rise when Canberra opens up.

But an enormous amount of research is still being done. This time last year, nobody would have predicted the amount of progress we have made on this planet.

There will no doubt be annual jabs, as for flu, and probably boosters for older people and vaccination for younger people.

"I would be surprised if by the end of the year, we weren't giving a third shot to people over 65," Professor Esterman said.

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