The usually packed Queen Street was left empty [Source: RNZ]

It’s a strange and frightening time for all New Zealanders, but spare an extra thought for Cheryl Henderson and her family.

On Monday, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the four-week lockdown, Cheryl’s husband Bill died after a battle with cancer.

“If we didn’t do something by today … they were going to have keep the body for a month or something,” she said.

“So we knew that we had to move quickly and it was very hard to get everything together and, of course, it was only a very small gathering.”

The funeral directors scrambled to get up to speed with the quickly changing regulations, and the family was able to hold a small service yesterday afternoon.

Daughter, Coral Bond, said the next month was going to be very strange and they would have to do lots of their grieving online.

“Normally part of the grief journey is you get together, you know? But we’ve got to do it online.”

Elsewhere in Auckland, the streets were strangely quiet bar supermarkets, liquor stores, and a scattering of still-open retailers.
At the big Countdown on Dominion Rd, the queue at one stage stretched over 100m, with people being careful to maintain a distance between other shoppers.