The markets are crowded again. Traffic is jamming the roads. Migrant workers have returned to the cities. And young people are back at schools and universities many of them for the first time in years, AP reports.

It isn't quite how things were before the Covid-19 pandemic mask mandates still exist in some places but with infections steadily declining, life in South Asia is returning to a sense of normalcy.

The mental scars from last year's delta-driven surge persist especially in India, where health systems collapsed and millions likely died but across the region high vaccination rates and hope that the highly contagious omicron variant has helped bolster immunity are giving people reasons to be optimistic.

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