A former Hunter Valley man now living in the US says COVID is "rarely even a topic of conversation now", despite cases being rampant where he lives.
And a former Newcastle resident living in Sweden has described the stress of living in a country where COVID restrictions were "not policed by anybody".
The number of deaths from COVID in the US [757,000] and Sweden [15,000] have been much more than in Australia [1750].
John Hopkins University figures show a death rate per 100,000 people of 230 in the US, 146 in Sweden and seven in Australia.
Lily Ray, who grew up in Newcastle but now lives in Sweden, was pregnant during the pandemic.
Sweden - which shunned lockdowns - has faced criticism for being too slow to react to the pandemic.
Ms Ray said people ignored restrictions because "they were not enforceable and the messages from government bodies were mixed".
"Restrictions were not policed by anybody and almost nobody wore masks. People wearing masks during the pandemic in Sweden were treated with derision," said Ms Ray, a former Newcastle Herald journalist.
"Even my public midwife refused to wear one and laughed when I sat on the seat further away from her in the visiting room."
Ms Ray said it was not only the death toll that was a problem in Sweden, but also "high numbers of people including children with long COVID symptoms".
"Even the vaccination rate, which was fantastic early on, has slowed down to around the 85 per cent mark since there are no restrictions left to incentivise it for those hesitant."
Author Matt Thompson moved from Dungog to Oregon in the US last year.
"My kid and I got COVID. I was fully vaccinated, yet caught it and apparently infected my daughter, who was unvaccinated but healthy. We got sick, my employer and the government dropped in groceries and we got over it," he said.
Dr Thompson said COVID was "rampant" in Oregon.
"The latest stats show that 1 in 9 Douglas County residents have been infected, with 1 in 435 county locals dying from COVID," he said.
He said it seemed that nine in 10 people don't care about COVID.
"I've certainly witnessed none of the ramped-up fear that I saw last year in Oz, and have since heard and read so much about," he said.
In Oregon, when cases were spiking a couple of months ago, Governor Kate Brown declared a new mask mandate. The Douglas County sheriff and Portland police, though, said they wouldn't enforce it.
Most of Dr Thompson's work colleagues have had COVID.
"It's rarely even a topic of conversation - except when it comes to that 'weird land Down Under'," he said.
He wishes he had a dollar for every time an American said to him: "You must be glad to be out of Australia".
Americans had made comments to him like "I thought Aussies came from a free country", "It looks like a police state" and "Are people OK with that?"
Dr Thompson had thought of responding with "a comparative critique of the two countries' health systems", but decided instead to "absorb more local life before lecturing Americans".
In Sweden, some have supported the more relaxed response to the pandemic, praising the greater focus on wellbeing, happiness and lower anxiety, rather than statistics on intensive care and deaths.
"Put simply, while the UK's focus has been on death, in Sweden the focus has been more on life and what makes it worth living," Clare Foges wrote in the Times of London.
Ms Ray said a lot of emphasis was put on "the way the government allegedly prioritised happiness, freedom and wellbeing".
"But many of the more draconian restrictions are limited to those in vulnerable situations. For example, partners were not allowed in recovery suites after the birth of their children," she said.
Ms Ray gave birth to her son Otto in August last year.
"I experienced a huge amount of stress and anxiety trying to stay safe," she said, adding that the lack of restrictions were "dangerous and exhausting".
"There was a distinct attitude that the vulnerable should look after themselves."
Dr Thompson is happy to be in the US. He was finding Australia's laws too restrictive.
"Even pre-Covid, people could too often be treated like inmates of an island prison," he said.
"It is hard to forget NSW Police's perverted rampage of strip-searches. What kind of country is it where police lurk at Sydney's Central Station at lunchtime ordering members of the public to drop their daks?
"It's an uncomfortable thought, but the ranks of countries where you tense up about security forces on the streets and at transport hubs includes, for example, Iran, where I got familiar with that state of apprehension and fearful powerlessness during the major crackdown of 2009."
Dr Thompson's book Running with the Blood Gods documents his experience in Iran.
"A submissive anxiety is something that Australian police seem all too keen to instill in citizens," he said.
"I think back to when English folk band Mumford & Sons performed in Dungog, my hometown before coming to America last year.
"When these singers of such incendiary tunes as 'Sigh No More' (which opens with 'Serve God, love me, and mend') played in 2012, a town without even a single traffic light was swarmed by a huge contingent of police very much out to show who's boss.
"When Fairfax Media looked into the economics of the police occupation of Dungog, where cops simultaneously insisted on their presence in large numbers and charged rates of up to $100 per hour per officer, with a bill to organisers in the tens of thousands of dollars, the then-Police Association president Scott Weber trotted out that 'it's about public safety'.
"Here, in Douglas County, Oregon, I simply don't see cops trawling for business in the name of 'public safety'. I see them responding to incidents, but not sweeping public areas or poised just out of sight on highways with speed cameras. And there are no fixed speed cameras."
He said Oregon was a "a different world to Oz".
"Drugs have been decriminalised - even heroin and methamphetamine - after one of the many referenda, there are marijuana shops, and as I write this I am sipping a special edition Dia de los Muertos beer from Mexico that I bought at the local convenience store. Even pharmacies sell booze."
