No work, no school, no trip to the pub, the supermarket, or day at the beach.
Since Monday, around 1000 Kiwis have been arriving in New Zealand from mainland China, every day, and are now expected to be in self-isolation.
The Government announced at the start of the week that all foreign nationals travelling from China who were trying to enter New Zealand were barred.
While New Zealanders are allowed in, they are expected to self-isolate for 14 days from the time they leave China. This means they should not go to places where they will be in contact with other people.
Ministry of Health director general Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed the number of Kiwis coming in to the country from China.
“Around 1000 people a day have come in since the beginning of the week and we’ve been asking them, expecting them to self-isolate,” Dr Bloomfield told 1 NEWS.
Dr Bloomfield says anyone who is self-isolated should register with Healthline.
“Folks who are registered we will be doing a regular outbound call to just to check in on them.
“We know some people are calling Healthline for information and what we want to do is get an idea of how many people there are and where they are,” he says.
People won’t be getting visited by the Ministry of Health, and will only be contacted if they have registered.
At this stage there is no way to monitor the people who are under self-isolation, or if they are abiding by that two week period.
But the Ministry of Health believes people won’t jeopardise their health, or the health of their families and communities by ditching it.
“Two weeks is a long time I admit that,” says Dr Bloomfield.
“I have a high level of trust and confidence that people do do the right thing to protect both their health and the health of their family and friends and of course to contribute to the wider community’s health,” he says.
“Our experience in previous situations like this is that people are very co-operate.”
Anyone who is self-isolated, whether registered or not, feeling unwell or showing signs of the virus should ring Healthline, the ministry advises.
The ministry has confirmed there are still no concerned or suspected cases in New Zealand, despite the increase of concerned cases in China, and the growing amount in other parts of the world.
The coronavirus death doll has now claimed over 600 lives, and there are more than 30,000 confirmed cases.
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