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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

This is a pop-up Covid testing place in Berlin, complete with charming tent and potted plant. June 9. Masks worn outdoors seem to be a thing of the past here. Walking to buy vegetables yesterday, I was the only person I saw masked. Even in the outdoor Turkish market, where they are still formally required, i saw more mouths than I did a month ago. (It’s interesting that the mouths of strangers have become a source of alarm.) I invited a senior colleague I like very much who is quarantining in Berlin to socially distant tea in a park. (She hasn’t replied, and I worry I was too forward.) Her quarantine is required because she flew in from the UK. The Delta variant is proving to be a serious contender there, despite their high vaccination rates. So Germany and France have put in travel bans. She herself is a German citizen, here to see her sibling’s newborn, so she was allowed in. She said it was heartbreaking seeing people turned away at the gate. The decision to shove Brexit through during the pandemic—« hard to understand » is the most restrained thing I can say about it. Germany trying to keep the Delta variant from getting up a head of steam here is understandable, though. They have half the vaccinated pop that the UK has, even if they are using Pfizer more than the less effective AstraZeneca. Berlin Cafes have opened outdoor seating, and no longer require you to present a negative COVID test to sit down. There are still pop -up Covid testing places everywhere—if you aren’t vaccinated, which is still most people, a negative test lets you dine indoors, or go to the gym, or even (!) go to the opera. Out walking I’ve seen a pop-up testing center in a lovely tent, out of the back of a car, at a stand that looked like a water ice stand in the park, and in several storefronts. Rapid tests have been available from Gorillas,, the grocery delivery company, for some time. I think it’s terrific. A few months ago it was impossible to get a test without potentially exposing yourself to COVID-19 in the process– you could only get them done at a doctor’s office or in testing centers with very long lines. So you didn’t get tested unless for some reason you absolutely had to. I have a PCR test I ordered from Amazon when they were briefly available for something like 80 euro before they sold out, which I hung on to anxiously all winter in case I had to fly back. It was priceless then. Now, I hope, it’s nearly valueless, and can gather dust in the bathtub with the rest of my emergency stores. ...