We could not have rolled better starting stats to have:
1) A giant moat around us.
2) Only really four international airports (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown).
3) All these are destination airports (as opposed to transit hubs where Singapore or Heathrow are classic examples).
I flew through Asia when SARS was in full swing and just now in February-March (just my luck) and have gone through borders where this was taken seriously earlier. NZs earlier "additional border controls" were pathetic. When I returned in mid March there was:
1) No thermal screening of passengers.
2) No health form to fill in.
3) Australian, Singapore and US!? passports were allowed to use the e-gates.
4) No additional cleaning of high risk surfaces.
5) No protective measures for the customs and border staff.
6) The only extra measure was a tiny pamphlet being handed out which essentially said: "If you feel sick, please ring healthline or a GP and tell them you have travelled."
Instead when I landed on 13th March:
1) I got a pamphlet handed to me which most passengers ignored and threw away
2) Had to touch the e-gates (which had no evidence of cleaning) that were touched by hundreds of other travellers
3) Could not wash my hands properly because soap ran out in a couple of the bathrooms
4) For extra points I could have jumped on a airport to city centre bus full of tourists from Europe (I got picked up instead).
and then they announced with a 48 hour warning that the border was shutting and then planes were packed coming in as people tried to "beat the compulsary quarantine".
The border should have been shut before the first case was detected here.
edit - additional new lines and a sentence