We're doing all the things being mooted in the UK already in Jersey.
As of 2 days ago, there is no need for anyone who is double jabbed and a direct contact of a positive case to isolate/stay away from school/stay away from their workplace as long as they don't have symptoms. They do have to agree to being tested on Days 0, 8 and 10 from being notified of being a direct contact, but other than that they can go about their life completely as normal. They don't have to wear a mask either.
Double jabbed people coming into the island (locals or anyone from anywhere) can also come in as long as they isolate until a negative Day 0 test (and agree to being tested on Days 8 and 10 as well).
Anyone who doesn't wish to participate in the triple testing must now isolate for 14 days, not 10. (It's 21 days in Guernsey).
People with only 1 jab currently (mostly students returning for the summer) are - according to strong rumours from Government sources in Jersey - likely to have thwir isolation cut in half from 10s days to only 5 days too. (The whole of the UK is red to us at the moment, so obviously that's an issue for over-18s who are yet to receive their 2nd jabs). We are aiming to have all over-18s double jabbed by the 2nd week of August - maybe sooner if supplies allow.
Yes, our cases have gone through the roof in the last 2 weeks (as of yesterday standing at 572 (which works out roughly at 0.5% of the total island population) but just over 9 out of 10 of those are in under 18s, people who haven't had any vaccine at all, or those with only one dose. Currently 2 people are in hospital, and another 1 person was in hospital last week, since discharged (who'd had only one dose of vaccine, but symptoms were relatively mild, treated quickly and they were only in for about 3 days).
We've been maskless now for almost a month. I'd say, from experience, maybe 1 person out of every 30 might still be wearing one. Some shops still have one door in, one door out, but most have just gone back to pre-Covid systems. The only sign in most shops now is the screens up at tills. Everything else about shopping is normal now. WFH was scrapped on May 10th, children have been in school all year (give or take a week or two before and after Christmas) since September 2020.
Children at primary school and nursery don't have to miss school any longer either, even if there is a case in their class, as long as they return a negative Day 0 test. Secondary students only have to isolate for 5 days if they return a negative Day 5 test. LFTs are available to the majority of students in KS3-5, as well as a large sector of businesses and services.
The UK (and many posters on here) seem to be wringing their hands and prophesising all kinds of doom and gloom if these things are implemented there. And yes, it will be a bit of 'worse before it gets better', but the worse isn't more hospitalisations or deaths. So her we are now, living 'with', but not 'in fear'.
Yes, we have been prepared for a rough winter - but not necessarily all to do with Covid, more to do with flu and other respiratory viruses because the vaccines are absolutely doing their job (just short of 62% now are fully vaccinated, and rising rapidly week-by-week) but what we need to do now is get people's natural immunities to flu and cold viruses back to where they should be. So while we know it will be tough this winter, no one's panicking.
And while new variants might be more transmissable, they are also much less deadly. Viruses aren't stupid - they know that if they remain as virulent as they were to start with, they will die off because they've killed off all the people who might carry them! Instead they mutate to much weaker strains that cause less harm with each one.
I know the UK isn't quite in the same position with regard to controlling travel in and out - and that's absolutely been the one main thing that got us ahead - but we've been told honestly from Day 1 of the pandemic that there is no such thing as total eradication (and there never was in this 21st century global travel world we live in) only managed suppression.