New Zealand has declared they are VIRUS-FREE. They haven't had any new cases in more than two weeks. They do not have to wear masks or social distance from one another.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while it may not be a full return to pre Covid 19 life, it's a milestone.
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-52961539
Alright well guess we all just migrate to New Zealand until the US figures this out.
That's actually from more than month ago, when we went back to Level 1 alert (normal life with border closed, 2 week managed quarantine for returning New Zealanders and non Kiwis with special permission - kind of essential workers - all paid for by government).
In reality, we didn't have active case that couldn't be linked to existing clusters for more than 70 days and no cases whatsoever for last 40 days.
Took 5 weeks of lockdown (only supermarkets, pet supply stores and pharmacies open, stay at home with allowance to go out for exercise and to walk dogs, social distancing at all times).
Gradually going down to level 3 and 2 (little less restrictions but not really much) took few more weeks.
Masks were never mandatory, lot of people chose to wear them of their own volition, though.
Currently reported active cases are all from overseas and discovered during mandatory quarantine (each person now tested on day 3 and day 12 of the quarantine). There have been some lapses with that managed isolation but thankfully nothing happened and it's been pretty tight now, with handful of dickheads escaping but getting quickly recaptured.
We'll see how long can this be sustained - it didn't take much for Melbourne to go back to full lockdown after total clusterfuck of isolation/quarantine mismanagement. Waiting and hoping for the rest of the world to get their shit together sooner rather than later.
Government role in all this was huge - science first, clear and concise communication, good plan on testing-tracing-isolation, economic help for all. They did stuff that you would expect from competent government to do but we were lucky this entire drama unfolded while they were in charge and not the other option. For me, more impressive was the fact that the entire nation took this seriously and everybody, give or take few exceptions, did their job.
