Two years of Covid in NZ - the wins, the losses and what comes next

Today marks two years since New Zealand recorded its first case of Covid-19.

A woman who had returned from Iran had tested positive in Auckland, confirming New Zealand as the 48th country to identify Covid. It was later discovered the disease had in fact arrived a few days earlier, carried by a pair of travellers who had just arrived from Italy.

What happened next will be written in the history books. An initial community outbreak, a nationwide lockdown, elimination success. A victory? Yes, but not a lasting one. Auckland was forced into lockdown three more times before the arrival of Delta prompted another national restriction.

Vaccination rates soared and the quashing of Delta was on the horizon, before Omicron reared its head.

Now, daily cases of the milder variant have topped 13,000 and the tension over lockdowns, vaccines and mandates has erupted into protest at the seat of power in Wellington.

Here Jamie Morton looks back at two years of Covid and asks what lies ahead for the country. Chris McDowall dives into the data to chart our coronavirus battle.