I don't know where you're located. I'm in Germany, where R0 is currently hovering at a sustainable 0.8-0.9 and the country is slowly opening back up. Shops, restaurants, cinemas and barbers are open, albeit with distance rules and obligatory face mask usage. Big gatherings are still forbidden, so sports events are being played in empty stadiums and there are no concerts. The only really huge issue ("huge" as in "impacts life daily") is education. Daycares and schools are slowly opening back up, but in a frustratingly slow pace since SARS-CoV-2 transmission through children is still not understood as much as we would like.
So yeah, there are definitely restrictions, but "a complete pause on life itself" would be a wild overstatement. If it's different where you are, it's either because the government failed to take effective steps early on and thus contributed to the spread of the virus, or if your society's culture facilitates the spread better than ours in Germany.
EDIT: For completeness' sake, I am worried that many businesses (restaurants, cinemas, etc.) will not be sustainable if they have to operate under social distancing guidelines indefinitely, since their price calculations are based on a certain occupancy rate. But I'm not an expert in this regard, so I'm honestly not sure how this will play out. Maybe rents will drop when landlords realize that this calculation looks similar for every prospective tenant.
So yeah, there are definitely restrictions, but "a complete pause on life itself" would be a wild overstatement. If it's different where you are, it's either because the government failed to take effective steps early on and thus contributed to the spread of the virus, or if your society's culture facilitates the spread better than ours in Germany.
EDIT: For completeness' sake, I am worried that many businesses (restaurants, cinemas, etc.) will not be sustainable if they have to operate under social distancing guidelines indefinitely, since their price calculations are based on a certain occupancy rate. But I'm not an expert in this regard, so I'm honestly not sure how this will play out. Maybe rents will drop when landlords realize that this calculation looks similar for every prospective tenant.