New Zealand has been forced into lockdown after a single coronavirus case was reported in Auckland.
The infection is the first in six months and has been met with a swift response from the government.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the entire country would go into a strict lockdown for three days from 11.59pm on Tuesday.
The "level four" rules mean schools, offices and all businesses will be closed and only essential services will operate.
Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, and Coromandel, a coastal town where the infected person had recently travelled to, will remain under the rules for at least seven days.
The prime minister told the country in a news conference: "The best thing we can do to get out of this as quickly as we can is to go hard.
"We have made the decision on the basis that it is better to start high and go down levels rather than to go low, not contain the virus and see it move quickly.”
She said authorities were assuming the new case was a Delta variant infection, although this has not been confirmed, and warned there may be other cases.
The last reported community case of Covid-19 in New Zealand was in February.
New Zealand has followed a go-hard-and-early strategy that has helped it virtually eliminate the coronavirus domestically, allowing people to live without restrictions.
But only around 20 per cent of the five million population have received two doses of a vaccine.
The country has plunged itself into near isolation with international borders remaining largely closed throughout the crisis.
New Zealand has reported about 2,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 26 related deaths.
The country’s currency tumbled on the announcement, falling 1.5% to $0.6926 after the lockdown was announced.
The news came a day before the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is expected to become the first central bank among developed countries to raise interest rates since the pandemic as the economy booms.
