Auckland, New Zealand

By Nadine Ruben Nathan

When I moved from New York to Auckland almost six years ago, a friend joked I should see it as an opportunity to retire — a joke that filled me with dread as I was only 41 at the time. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a city that thrummed with energy. A whirlwind of dinners with friends at excellent Auckland eateries, art gallery openings, literary events and concerts ensued — not quite New York, but busy.

Our young daughters complained we went out too much. So it came as a surprise to really enjoy being forced to stay at home for the past six weeks since March 25 when our fabulous prime minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, pictured, closed the borders and asked New Zealanders to “go hard and go early” into lockdown.

I’ve been tallying the gains of lockdown — quiet streets, time to look inward, quality family time even if just to sit down to lunch together before returning to our different corners of the house to Zoom meetings or lessons, baking cupcakes and bread — and also realising how lucky we are to not be locked in as my family in SA were or to have the traumatic daily death toll outside our door as my sister in New York has.

Staying oblivious in one’s bubble isn’t easy when so many others in New Zealand are suffering with job losses. I worry about those who were already in hardship — one in seven households in New Zealand, including about 220,000 children.

A daily Zoom with three friends — something that started as a simple online catchup to stay sane and have a break from family time — quickly turned into a Covid response when we decided to use fabrics we had at home to sew face masks and donate them to women and children in safe houses as a result of family violence.

The results of New Zealand’s lockdown have been nothing short of miraculous. We’ve managed to avoid the tens of thousands of cases that could have overwhelmed our health-care system, not to mention the deaths that were predicted in the thousands.

My children are still at home, with us as their teachers. Even with the current results, Ardern has asked that Kiwis remain in their bubbles for now to lock in the gains we’ve made.