Excuse my jumping in on your thread, but as a very temporary recent Kiwi, I thought I may have something to contribute.
We arrived in NZ on Thursday 12 Mar. At the time we were well aware of the virus threat, but then it was a problem that existed on the other side of the world, and Australia was taking a very criticised ‘racist’ attitude to excluding high risk overseas students and tourists.
To quote one of our previous PMs, we were ‘alert but not alarmed’.
How quickly it all changed. From being relaxed about it all, we became concerned on Saturday night while watching the NRL, and by Monday night had decided that it was game over, time to get home.
We are now in the 6th or 7th day of isolation, depending how you interpret the rules.
Neither of us have any symptoms, but right now are at the critical point of displaying any of those symptoms.
We have told our neighbours of our situation, from a distance, and are fortunate we have a large house and block to hibernate in.
So far we have communicated to friends and family via phone/email, and are using the food that we had in the freezer and cupboard. But our concern is whether there is anything left in the supermarkets when we finish, and what the lockdown rules will be by then.
(We could die from starvation rather than the virus … joke.
)
I have spent time mowing, trimming hedges, chopping branches, de-cob-webbing, and sorting out travel cancellation correspondence.
Missus has cleaned and vacuumed the house way beyond necessary, and walked the perimeter of our block for an hour each day.
The cars have been on battery chargers, and tomorrow I will put them in the driveway, run the engines to circulate the oil, and go for an imaginary drive while making appropriate ‘vroom, vroom’ noises.
As NZ wakes up 2 hours before Aus does, I can see us following Jacinta's recent decisions very closely.
I feel for people who have to self isolate in apartments or town houses, and lack the opportunity get outside and do things.