Return to lockdown: The first seven days

On Tuesday 17 August, a minute before midnight, the country went into Alert Level 4 lockdown after nearly six hours’ notice. The decision by the Cabinet to go to lockdown came after a single positive case of COVID-19 was detected in the community on that day – a 58-year-old man in Devonport. The case was assumed to be, and was later confirmed as, the Delta variant. The man had visited his GP in Devonport the day before, after feeling unwell and received a COVID-19 test. The man was likely to have been infectious as early as Thursday 12 August and on Friday 13 August had travelled with his partner to the Coromandel. By Saturday he had become symptomatic and returned to Auckland on Sunday. On the same day the case was announced, the Ministry of Health also advised there were over 20 locations of interest for contact tracing in Auckland and Coromandel. The initial lockdown period for Auckland and the Coromandel was seven days; for the rest of the country, three days. The latter was extended to seven days on Friday 20 August and, as we went to print, a further extension sees Auckland at Alert Level 4 until 31 August and the rest of the country until 27 August, with both dates up for review.

The following is collated from daily stories on nzdoctor.co.nz through the first week of lockdown