Auckland lockdown threatens to split 'team of five million'

Checkpoints, swabs and isolation make residents in New Zealand's biggest city question the government's approach to Covid-19

The catch cry of be kind" - which prime minister Jacinda Ardern impressed upon New Zealand since its first lockdown a year ago - is in danger of being replaced with a less positive mantra as Aucklanders struggle through their second Covid-19 lockdown in a fortnight.

The country's biggest city has been in level-three lockdown since Sunday morning as a result of two cases of community transmission, which were found to have happened while an earlier period of level-three restrictions were in place - threatening to fracture the unity of the team of five million".