So much for the big post-pandemic reopening we expected this fall.
Instead, a season of caution and delay is here: Office-return plans have been postponed. Schools are back in session, but with worries of exposure to the more-contagious Delta variant. Meanwhile, divisions over masks and safety protocols are sharpening, and Covid-19 cases keep climbing. It’s a long way from earlier this summer, when the initial rollout of vaccines promised a return to worry-free social gatherings, travel and other elements of pre-virus life.
If you are searching for new ways to steel yourself through this next phase of uncertainty, you’re not alone. Many people are over the tactics that sustained them through earlier pandemic stages, such as Zoom cocktail hours, jigsaw puzzles and knitting challenges, say psychologists and other mental-health experts. And our dashed hopes for a less-stressed fall add an extra challenge.
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