Do not be deceived. It may feel like a return to normality. We no longer have to wear masks even on public transport. Memories of the awful days of lockdown are fading. Those terrible times when there was a real danger of hospitals being overwhelmed by waves of COVID patients seem like visions from another era.
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But the current calm is deceptive. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a sly and adaptive organism.
Two new subvariants - BQ.1 and XBB - are causing concern. Health experts believe they will become the dominant strains in Australia.
In Singapore, it took only three weeks for XBB to overtake every other variant, so the warning signs for our country are strong.
These new variants seem to be better at beating the defences our bodies have built up from past infections. Some immunity does remain for those who have previously caught COVID but it gets weaker as time passes. Similarly, the protection of vaccines also weakens with time.
So it is important to remember the pandemic has not vanished. The ingenuity of scientists has stopped it from being a potential death sentence for most people - but it does remain as a serious threat to the health of those who are vulnerable, and that includes people you will know.
The health authorities have warned Australia is at the start of another COVID-19 wave. Already, the figures are going in the wrong direction.
In Victoria, for example, hospitalisations of those infected with COVID increased by 20 per cent in the last full week of October.
The difficulty is we have lowered our defences. Masks have gone into the back drawer or into the bin. They seem like a bad memory. We are now used to not wearing them. We may even be irritated by them.
There are currently no mandatory isolation rules in place in Australia - and it would be very hard to bring them back.
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None of this means we should prepare for the return of the darkest days of 2020. We have learnt much in the meantime, with the help of science.
But it does mean we should be wary. Masks remain a good defence, particularly in crowded indoor places. Cleanliness remains important.
Distance was a good barrier against the devious virus when it was rampant two years ago. That has not changed.
