COVID? What COVID? | Coronavirus Updates Newsletter

The gist: This week, a new study shows that more and more people are returning to their pre-COVID lives as reported cases continue to remain at relatively low levels nationwide. That news comes as students prepare to head back to school, with many area universities relaxing masking mandates, and the Philadelphia School District going mask-optional. New Jersey, meanwhile, is rolling back a COVID testing mandate for teachers that had been in place since last August.

📥 Tell us: If you’ve had COVID, what was your experience like? Send us a note, and we’ll share some responses in next week’s newsletter. Please keep it to 35 words.

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— Nick Vadala (@njvadala, health@inquirer.com)

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A growing number of people say their lives have returned to normal amid the pandemic, according to a new study from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, which has been tracking attitudes and behaviors toward COVID every few months since spring 2021. More than half of respondents said that they never or rarely wear masks when indoors with people outside their households, and 41% said they have already returned to pre-pandemic living.

💉 Philly-area universities including Temple and Penn are relaxing masking rules for the fall semester, but are sticking with their vaccine requirements.

🎒 Philadelphia School District schools are going mask-optional this year, but kids and staff must still mask for the first 10 days of class.

😷 New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has ended the state’s COVID testing mandate for teachers, child-care workers, and state contractors, undoing requirements that went into place last August.

🏥 With COVID vaccination rates stalling, Philadelphia mobile clinics are finding new purpose with services like chronic disease monitoring, urgent care, and preventative health screenings.

📉 Coronavirus cases are falling in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Track the latest data here.

Last week, we asked what your experience with being sick with COVID was like. Here’s what you told us:

🤒 “Like a 3-day flu, 4 day recovery, 2 more weeks to feel 100%. Cough took a month to clear up. Possible Covid-related insomnia a few weeks later. 0/10 do not recommend.”

😴 “Two days of flu symptoms, chills, fever. After 10 days no smell and one ear clogged for est. three months. And still so very tired I slept a couple times a day.”

👂 “After being extraordinarily careful and four vaccines, I contracted Covid in May. I was left with severe and permanent hearing loss in my left ear. It is a rare Covid side effect. If caught early, the outcome could be different.”

😧 “I had Covid in 2021. It was the worst cough for 7 nights and days. A few months later I discovered I had diastasis on side of my stomach from the brutal coughing… I still am living from the aftermath of Covid.”

💊 “In addition to feeling run down, tired, having a cough and runny nose, I got a terrible Covid headache that lasted over 24 hours. My COVID headache was a terrible pounding pain in my forehead that did not respond to any of my prescribed migraine medications.”

Reading a paper map may be a skill lost to the ages at this point, and nowadays most people don’t use them at all. But for Lewisburg’s Kevin and Megan Langdon, there’s still a nostalgia to maps — especially when you include a hit of “augmented reality” technology. Floating Maps, their company, offers customers printed maps of small Pennsylvania towns that turn a simple, decorative wall hanging into an interactive tour through that town’s history. And it all started because of a rug.

📽️ Philadelphia has a storied history as a movie city — and not just as the setting for blockbusters like Rocky. These days, the Philly area is reclaiming its bygone status as one of America’s foremost movie towns.

🍻 Beer is good. Pretzels are good. Now, thanks to Philly brewery Evil Genius and pretzel purveyors Auntie Anne’s, they’re finally united in one beverage with Is Butter a Carb? — a new brew that includes actual pretzel dough from the mall food court stalwart.

🎭 Philadelphia Theater Company’s new artistic leadership comes as a package deal: a married couple who, together, will assume the role of artistic director. Here’s their vision for the theater’s future.

After losing his family home and battling the impacts of the pandemic on his restaurant, BBQ Unlimited, since March 2020, chef Sean Green recently caught a break. Now, thanks in part to a deal with food-service contractor Fooda, Green is back on the upswing with a new apartment attached to a commissary kitchen, where he and his wife, Nikeah, can cook for their clients, which include several office buildings in the Philadelphia area, as well as a location in the Willow Grove Park mall food court.