Chemistry students at Otago University take to making their own hand sanitiser while national supplies run low. Web developers work on pages that list how long waits are to enter supermarkets as capacity limits see long lines. Parliament's 120 MPs are replaced by a virtual 11-member "Epidemic Response Committee" - chaired by National Party leader Simon Bridges.Īt Auckland's ASB Showgrounds, officials have drafted in hundreds of unused tourist campervans to act as makeshift isolation facilities for people returning from overseas without a place to self-isolate. Many news stories from the first several weeks tell of a hectic, chaotic, and unusual time. It takes only days for Aotearoa's borders to be snapped shut on Thursday, March 19.Īround 40,000 visitors and tourists from Europe, alongside tens of thousands of other people who aren't residents, have just been told to go home.įour days later, on March 29, authorities reports the country's first Covid-19 death - a woman on the West Coast - as official figures rise to around 70 new cases a day.
But I don’t think we will need to go into a lockdown,' he told Times Radio. Around this time, officials begin working on the final alert level system that would later come to define New Zealand's response. However, another lockdown might not be needed, said Professor John Edmunds. Large gatherings are being cancelled, and the World Health Organization has now declared a global pandemic. The virus is infectious and deadly without a vaccine.
WILL WE HAVE ANOTHER LOCKDOWN TV
It only becomes known later that the Queenstown event is the country's first super-spreader event, eventually linked to dozens of cases around the country.īut by March 13, scenes on TV of overwhelmed emergency rooms overseas and new research are presenting a reality that's becoming increasingly unavoidable. That morning, the health minister David Clark tells Q+A that the risk of a widespread community outbreak is still "low". Come March 8, hundreds from around the world are gathering in Queenstown for the World Hereford Conference.
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