For context, on 8th March (the date of the Newtown festival) there had been a cumulative 224 tests undertaken and only 5 positive results, all of which were linked to recent overseas travel. [1]

Through what seems to be sheer luck, NZ managed to avoid importing any cases from China during the "first wave", and it wasn't until the outbreaks took hold in Iran, Italy, and New York that we began to see our first imported cases -- starting with our first case on February 28th, where the source of infection was Iran. (It's important to note that by the time the first case was detected, nearly 200 tests had already been performed -- all were negative.)

However the number of cases arriving from overseas began to ramp up incredibly fast in the following two weeks, during which time a series of increasingly severe border restrictions were introduced starting on the 16th of March, and finally culminating in the full Level 4 lockdown starting on the 26th. At the announcement of the lockdown (on the 23th) New Zealand had a total of just 102 cases [2].

[1] https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/covid-1... [2] https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/36-new-...

For comparison, New York stay at home order went live on March 22 when they had 7000 cases while for New Zealand it was 500 cases on march 28 when the order went into effect.