This means we will go about life very differently to help slow down the spread of COVID-19, and in that, we all have a role to play. Only those in essential services will leave home to go to work. All others stay home and stop interactions with those outside the home. Non-essential business premises close, events and gatherings are cancelled, schools close, public transport is reserved for those that are undertaking essential services and transport of freight, domestic air travel is very limited, and New Zealanders entering at our borders undergo strict measures to isolate or quarantine. From midnight tonight, we bunker down for four weeks to try and stop the virus in its tracks and to try to break the chain. Make no mistake: this will get worse before it gets better. We will have a lag, and cases will increase for the next week, or actually more. Then we'll begin to know how successful we have been.