People in Isle of Man, New Zealand, Australia etc...

[manicinsomniac]

Anyone in those countries or any others with almost no Covid:

Do people in your country now:
blow out candles on birthday cakes
share food (eg everyone's hands in the same bowl of crisps)
shake hands
kiss friends

Purely out of curiosity really. They're just things I can't ever imagine doing again. It seems almost 'dirty' which is pretty sad.

In small town NZ yes but I know people in Auckland who are still being cautious. However like a PP said the hongi is less used than it was a year ago.

I’m in Sydney - candle blowing out, yes. Sharing food, yes, shaking hands, yes but I think we almost do it by reflex and often afterwards I think “shit! I shook hands!” and go and wash them.
In my gym we constantly wipe everything down, sanitise hands but it’s the only place I go to town on it.
Everything else is normal apart from we can’t go to any school things at the moment, but that’s been fine, I’d prefer to have them at school and miss the athletics carnival or whatever.

in Aus. in a state that had very low levels of community trans and none for months. some changes - minimal handshaking/kiss greetings (not sad to see these gone personally) i do hug family and friends. we go out and share food, i wouldnt do a bday cake with randoms but fine with family.
school requested cupcakes not whole cakes for bday celebrations to be covid safe.
just now navigating planning end of year/christmas community events, most will be outdoor due to caps on inclosed venues and byo food and drinks to side step all the food service issues (ie byo wine/juice boxes/beers and picnics) or providing individual picnic trays for fancier events.
life is pretty normal - kids have school events and had a camp this term. most big Christmas things cancelled but expecting as summer starts and now with minmal covid country wide some fun events popping up.
even with no cases testing widely available, my kids have come down with a cough so we just got back from the drive thru test at our local country hospital and will iso until results come through tomorrow. we went to the city last weekend so had more contact with others than usual so still trying to be responsible even no virus present. (more terrified of getting a false positive and the chaos that that would create!)

I'd be perfectly happy to never hug people outside my family, shake hands, kiss people on greeting (god I hated that when it became a thing), or blow out candles ever again. None of these things add anything to my life at all.

I am immensely social and friendly and love celebrations but why shaking hands/hugging/kissing non-family members is necessary is beyond me.

In Melbourne it’s as @Percivalthebabyspider said.

We are still very mindful of social distancing, wearing masks, meeting outside etc.

We had a long, strict second lockdown through our winter to get to our 12 days of no new cases here. I think it’s made us mindful of taking sensible precautions as they are relatively small behavioural changes that have worked to give us back our freedom and health.

My experience is that the anxiety re the ‘dirty’ behaviour goes away and everyone just acts sensibly - even the children. It’s ‘COVID normal’ here - we are very happy and relieved that our group efforts and sacrifices paid off

I'm in Auckland. Yes I kissed and hugged all my book club fiends last night. 20 of us round a kitchen table.

I also ran theAuckland Marathon 2 weekends ago. 5000 of us shoulder to shoulder at the start. 20000 of us in Vic park at the finish line

Sydney here. Birthdays with candles, cakes and shared food- yes. But for dc birthdays are now mostly from daycare so they're with each other all week. Used to be more of a mixed bag.
Shaking hands- no, but we also don't bump elbows. More of a wave or lifted hand instead.
We're going about our days mostly as usual but dc no longer come to the supermarket, we don't go to malls in the same way (in and out as fast as possible rather than lots of browsing and coffees or lunch etc). DC activities limited to one parent in attendance.
Haven't been in public transport since first week of March, (walk everywhere and drove if we need to).
Masks at all dr appointments but no trouble getting them, even on same day.
Annual Christmas party replaced by location specific gatherings at restaurants chosen for good ventilation or outdoor seating. Team activities/lunches etc replaced with location specific walks and outdoor coffees.

I suspect that the places which never had a lot of cases (where there is still hugging and kissing etc), will be more vulnerable to outbreaks as the behavioural changes have not been made. I’m thinking of my parents in NZ. Life has continued pretty much normally. They do nothing differently.

They are also saying we are on track for vaccination roll out in Australia from March 21. Looks like we have 10m Pfizer and then astra Zeneca too but I'm not sure how many and obviously the results haven't been released.
Desperately missing our families in NZ too and hoping we can work our way towards a travel bubble soon.

I'm in Melbourne. We've just fourteen straight days of zero cases. Today I hugged a friend for the first time since about March. We wear face masks. We don't shake hands. We don't share food. We don't blow out candles. Melbourne has taken this incredibly seriously, and on the whole everyone has got on with the hard work of lockdown. It's paid off tremendously. I'm hoping things will feel a bit more 'normal' soon, but am really over the moon that for the moment we appear to be covid-free.

@damnthatanxiety SA in this thread probably refers to South Australia