You are simply wrong on the US. It wasn’t a “handful” of states that were over lockdowns by summer 2022 - it was 2 of the 4 most populated as well as the entire southeast and middle of the country along with half of NC and rural VA. Wether or not the state had a mask mandate, the same applied to compliance.

Vaccine passports were only a thing in a few places in the US, and unlike unvaccinated Australians, my unvaccinated family and I traveled throughout - including internationally on planes.

Our faux vaccine rate is lower than Australias, and we had them first with months longer when a lot of people thought they actually worked.

This guy says it WAY better than I could.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/thank-god-for-rednecks/