We are all so tired of hearing about the COVID-19 pandemic. It is annoying and we all want to return to life as it was prior to this pandemic. And it seems like the country of New Zealand has the perfect plan to make that happen. As they just hit the milestone of 100 days without a local coronavirus case.

The details first came from KRDO, reporting that throughout the entire pandemic the country handled 1,219 confirmed cases including 21 active cases but all of those had come from people traveling abroad. The total population of New Zealand is around 5 million people and they have only had 22 coronavirus deaths.

One of the big reasons that New Zealand has done so well through this pandemic is their testing of thousands of people a day, even though it seems they have a handle on it, they want to stay ahead of it to make sure there are no further outbreaks.

Another big step that New Zealand did was "go hard, and go early" according to their Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. They closed their borders to foreign travelers on March 19th, also no recreating at beaches were allowed, and no one was allowed to drive outside of their neighborhood. This remained for five weeks, but some of the rules stayed in places for two weeks after their initial five-week period.

After these rules were followed by everyone the country has reopened to everything including sporting events beginning in June. It is interesting to find out that face masks were not a major tool in fighting the spread of coronavirus in New Zealand.

Obviously, here in the United States, we are way past the initial stages so it's difficult to know what is best now. We still have our face mask mandate in place across the state of Colorado an order put in place by Governor Polis. But only time will tell when we will be able to open up again and attend a sporting event or music concert.

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