COVID-19 has a substantial impact on the operations of analytical facilities that serve external users.1 At the end of April 2020, only a third of the surveyed research infrastructures (RIs) reported that they maintained such user access activities; however, several had set up specific COVID-19 services and responded to travel limitations with a strong shift towards remote services. Half a year later, the pandemic is still not over, and the significant mutations of the virus observed recently indicate that COVID-19 is likely to remain endemic for the foreseeable future. RIs, as a consequence, will have to learn how to live with it to some degree, possibly for years to come.