Angelika This week, our chief expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, announced that we in the USA have moved past the acute phase of the pandemic. Let's hope it stays that way. After the holidays in December, the Omicron variant hit us with full force in San Francisco and the surrounding area. At the school, this resulted in a very high rate of employee sick leave in January, and we maintained school operations with extremely limited staff. Although the quarantine period is now only 5 days if you test positive and are vaccinated, we were still at our wits' end.

We are a very small school and work with challenging children. Even when one staff member is absent, we feel it significantly. I also felt as if I had a test swab permanently in my nose because I was always in close contact with positive individuals. Miraculously, I did not get infected. I have no idea why. Maybe my strict adherence to wearing an FFP2 mask helped. The Omicron wave has now subsided, but as is the case with waves, the next one will surely come soon, especially since the mask mandate has been lifted in San Francisco and at our school. We only have to wear masks in a few exceptions, namely in doctor's offices, hospitals, nursing homes, homeless shelters, and prisons.

Of course, everyone can still voluntarily wear a mask, and here in San Francisco, you see only a few people without a mask in stores. I also still wear a mask most of the time at school, even though almost none of the students and staff do anymore. Until recently, we were also required to wear a mask on public transportation. Now the situation is a bit more complicated, after a federal judge in Florida lifted the national mask mandate for transportation, such as buses, subways, and airplanes in the USA about two weeks ago. Now, individual municipalities or transportation companies themselves determine what applies to their transportation system. In San Francisco, this has led to the absurdity that masks are mandatory on BART (the subway in San Francisco), but not on buses and streetcars, because Muni, a different transportation company, is responsible for those.

In the meantime, many tech companies in Silicon Valley have also ordered their employees back to the office from home, which is noticeably reflected in the increasing traffic. Michael, too, had to return to the office after more than two years. However, this is happening gradually for him. Initially, he had to work one day at the company's offices in mid-April. By now, he has reached two days, and in the next phase, this will increase to three days. Since most employees enjoy working from home, it will still be allowed for two days a week. Naturally, Michael grumbled a bit when he had to go back, because for him, working from home is the ultimate, and he could have continued like that indefinitely.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Cave tours in Pinnacles National Park
  	The true American driver's license - "Real ID"
  	Ukraine in America
  	Cat theft in broad daylight
  	Top Product: Ooni Pizza Oven
  	Sliding with a potato sack
  	Finally understandable: Democratic, liberal, and progressive