The current New Zealand count is 28 cases. However, it turns out they are playing with our heads with these numbers. The automatic assumption has been that there are 28 people in hospital. But the latest release yesterday let us peek inside the tent. The Health department head said "8 new cases today, one of whom is in hospital. So here we have a population thinking that there are 28 people with CV in hospital when the reality is there are maybe one of two in hospital, the rest have tested positive to the virus, are displaying no symptoms and are in self isolation at home. Wow. Quite a big difference. Talk about head games.
And on the back of the 28 cases, all ascribed to people who have returned from overseas, the borders have been closed and only New Zealand citizens and permanent residents are allowed back into the country. There has also been talk about various overseas tourists who are in the country and not self isolating, and how unacceptable that is. It feels like they are building up to expelling all foreign tourists, in the name of safety - time will tell.
Once we had 2 days where 8 new "patients" were identified, panic buying has accelerated. Supermarkets have quickly jumped on this and placed limits of numbers of items that can be purchased - masks, hand sanitiser, toilet paper - no more than 3 units of each. I did grocery shopping yesterday. I reckon about 10% of people were panic buying, with 2 or 3 trolleys each, the rest were mildly bemused about the whole thing and expressing amazement and the foolishness of people. So, no huge panic in the population yet, at least in the smaller town I live in (20K people). The panic seems to be restricted to our largest city Auckland where there are queues at all the supermarkets.
As far as the leadership goes, I think the politicians here are to some extent being forced to take actions. If they don't close borders, institute isolation regimes etc, they will come under intense criticism from the opposition politicians and the vocal minority in the population who have their own clear agenda, and risk losing the next election, due in September.
All in all interesting times.