The mum and dad of a five-year-old girl say they are 'fearful' every time she leaves the house now restrictions have been lifted.
Mask mandates are mostly over in England, people are no longer advised to work from home, and venues can opt in to the use of covid passes.
But for many, this new freedom comes with an extra layer of risk.
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Dad-of-three, Gareth Nye lives in Newton-le-Willows with his family, including five-year-old daughter Gracie who has diabetes.
Gareth and his wife say they are afraid of exposing her to risk every time Gracie goes to school.
He told the ECHO: "Obviously it's mixed emotions for my wife and I.
"It's important she goes to school, and Gracie loves it, but obviously the risk is there and so we are fearful that she will come down with covid.
He added: "For most children, covid has completely passed them by. Most children will get mild symptoms, if any.
"However, under 12s make up nearly 20% of all infections and are a significant number of current hospital admissions.
"We are simply ignoring that a lot of children have underlying health conditions.
"I have three children aged 12 and under, one of whom has type 1 diabetes.
"We cannot keep her off school everyday, but each time she goes we are potentially exposing her to a disease that will impact her more heavily then her peers."
Being ill can send the blood sugar level of people with diabetes all over the place as the body releases glucose into the blood, to help fight illness, faster than the body can produce insulin to cope with the blood sugar levels.
Gareth said that Gracie spent a day in A&E while her bloods settled the last time she had a stomach bug.
High blood sugar levels, known as hyperglycaemia, can be dangerous if the level is very high or stays high for long periods of time.
With under 12s currently exempt from covid vaccinations, Gareth worries about the health implications for children who catch covid, particularly due to the lack of understanding we have about how long covid impacts them.
Covid vaccines are of particular interest for Gareth, who is a lecturer in physiology, with expertise in maternal and fetal health, at Chester Medical School.
He said: "We are seeing a theme of women not having the vaccine during pregnancy, or afterwards due to breastfeeding.
"Not only does this leave pregnant women vulnerable to the effects of covid when their bodies are being impacted negatively already, but they are leaving newborns without any safety net through passing of immunity.
"We understand that everyone is free to choose whether or not to have a vaccine, or when they may choose to, however by removing the extra restrictions, we are really exposing these two groups to covid which has neither gone away nor become less dangerous."
Gareth is currently running a survey asking woman who have been pregnant in the last decade to share their experiences of maternal and fetal care.
Similarly mixed feelings about the removal of Plan B measures is felt in Liverpool.
Dave Critchley opened Chinese restaurant Lu Ban in November 2019, getting only a few months of business as usual before the ever-changing restrictions of the covid pandemic.
He's happy to see masks gone as "communicating with customers and showing proper hospitality by smiling and welcoming them" is made difficulty by face coverings.
If the year runs smoothly, with no further rule changes, Dave thinks his business has a chance of survival.
But "just because the restrictions have gone, it doesn't mean covid has disappeared".
Dave said: "We still have a duty of care to our staff and the guests who are coming through our doors, to try and ensure that they are always safe within our business."
Staff levels still haven't recovered from the blow of the early pandemic, which is true for much of the hospitality sector.
The executive chef director of Lu Ban explained: "When covid first hit and the restaurants closed, we lost a certain amount of our staff who were European workers - Irish, Spanish, Eastern European.
"They went back homes, so we lost a large percentage of our front of house team.
"On reopening, we were losing staff every single week to covid, and trying to recruit during that time was really difficult, because there just weren't a lot of people around to recruit from.
"We're still feeling it now. There'll be someone off every week without doubt. There's always going to be someone off.
"So it's impossible to stay on top of staffing, but we're just doing the best we can, and the team are pulling together and making it work, whether we're fully staffed or not."
Hurtling down the road towards restaurants like Lu Ban is the rising cost of food and fuel that's squeezing households and businesses across the country.
Already, Dave has had to swap out ingredients that are no longer available, like prawns from Vietnam.
Staff have worked hard to find a natural balance between good business and covid safety measures, keeping space between tables and providing hand sanitiser.
The cost of living is another problem they'll take as it comes.
But Dave wants people to respect the work of people in the hospitality industry, particularly given the mental impact of the last two years.
He said: "Hospitality staff are under a huge amount of pressure, a huge amount of strain.
"We've literally fought for the last two years to keep our jobs, to keep our businesses alive.
"And we're understaffed, we are constantly understaffed and we're constantly working twice as hard as we might have normally had to in the past.
"Be kind to those people who are serving you and working their socks off to keep our guests in a safe environment, in a nice environment, and to give them a great experience as well."
