On midnight last Wednesday in New Zealand, something unimaginable even three weeks earlier happened: a state of emergency was declared and the country went into a "level four" lockdown, effectively becoming a police state.

The aim is to stop the person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus. New Zealand now has 514 cases in total, seven in hospital and one in ICU. The first death was recorded on Sunday, a woman in her 70s on the remote west coast of the South Island.