Kodiack

Finance minister expanded upon all of the measures that are in place to soften the economic blow of this. Incredible all around, really. I'm very proud of this government.

This is going to be for four weeks minimum. Among the most extreme measures in the world, especially this early on.

New Zealand now at alert level 3, and going into alert level 4 in 48 hours. We are in lockdown now, and going into full lockdown in two days. This is on top of the border being closed.

36 new cases in New Zealand, with 102 total. Over half of cases today were from travel; almost all were from travel or close contact; two were unknown and are being treated as community transmission. Our prime minister is going to address the nation again soon with regards to our alert level, which will likely be raised with this information. We will likely be going into lockdown.

New Zealand had 14 new cases, now 53 total. Community transmission cannot be ruled out; a couple of cases were not linked directly to travel. The government has given the official recommendation that places need to "work differently" now (e.g. work from home where possible). I have been working from home for the past 2+ weeks already so this does not directly impact my day-to-day, although I may be helping other coworkers set up their work-from-home capabilities now. They essentially laid out an alert system with four levels. We're at alert level 2 right now, with level 3 being lockdown, and level 4 being extensive lockdown. This coming week will confirm whether there has been any further spread within the community.

11 more cases in NZ today, again all from international travel. Total of 39. Still no confirmed community transmission. Fingers crossed...

Literally ten seconds after I posted this I got a notification that someone in my office building (from a different company) tested positive. Whelp...

New Zealand's borders are now completely closed to everyone except citizens and permanent residents. We still haven't had any confirmed community transmission. If we can keep it under control for another week or two, there's actually a distinct possibility that we may be in the clear until vaccines can eventually be distributed.

Another eight new cases in NZ today. 28 total now. Still all from overseas. No community transmission confirmed yet.

Eight new cases in New Zealand. That's a 66% increase. Twenty total now. Meanwhile, my company just announced a pay freeze today, as I was immediately due for a significant pay review next week. Horrible timing and I'm frustrated, but I'm still in a position to weather all of this.

Twelfth case in NZ. High school student in Dunedin whose dad tested positive earlier. Scary possibility that we're going to start seeing some community transmission in the next couple of days to a week. The culture here already has a lot of us self-isolating and social distancing, so hopefully we'll have a very flat curve. Also, the stimulus package announced in Parliament today was incredible. Very thankful to have the government that we do right now.

Three new cases announced in NZ today. We're up to eleven now.

Here in New Zealand we're isolating everyone coming into the country for two weeks, enforceable by law. Non-citizens/residents that do not follow self-isolation protocol can be deported. We have still not had any confirmed community transmission, although we've recently had some tourists do some dumb stuff. One visitor from Denmark visited Auckland, Christchurch, and Queenstown before she felt ill and was confirmed as positive. Another guy from Australia came while he was awaiting test results, went to a café, then got the message he tested positive and went back to his hotel then informed the Ministry of Health. Our government is going to be announcing a massive stimulus package today. New Zealand is set to potentially weather this exceptionally well. However, we may also feel the economic effects for much longer than other countries, as there's a possibility that we may be able to avoid community transmission until a vaccine is developed. It's certainly crazy and unprecedented times. I've been working from home for several weeks already, and I'm set to do this indefinitely at this rate. I'm throwing all of the extra money I'm saving into the stock market in the meantime, dollar-cost averaging as everything goes down.

Wow.

Yep, saw the statement pretty much immediately when it came out. https://medium.com/@teamwarren/next-steps-bfa8482e2fbc Curious what she'll do at this point. Placing third in her home state is not a good look...