This is textbook stuff.
It's clear Treasury Secretary Caralee McLiesh and Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr are already providing advice and/or readouts behind scenes.
But there comes a time when it is useful to tear barriers down — and this is one.
An intensive briefing where the Prime Minister is joined not only by Finance Minister Grant Robertson but also McLiesh and Orr would have the demonstrative effect that the country's top brass know what they are doing when confronting not simply a potential health crisis but also what is rapidly becoming a regional economic threat.
Talk about the economy's "automatic stabilisers" flies over the head of most people.
Pressure is coming on for the Government to give tax cuts and for the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates.
But it may be premature to use that arsenal.
There is precedent for the key figures to step away from their titular power and combine forces.
The East Asian Crisis in 1997 where a major currency crisis spilled over into economic contagion persuaded the then National Government to invite senior officials firmly into the room.
Like today the Government and its officials were confronted with a rapidly evolving situation. The shockwaves from that financial crisis drove the NZ economy into its first recession since 1991.
Then — as today — New Zealand was vulnerable. Not simply because one-third of NZ trade was with the East Asia region. But also because of the exposure of the export sector.
That exposure on the export front is far greater now and more concentrated.
We also face a potential supply shock, as was indicated yesterday when a leading retailer said it faced delays in shipments.
None of this should be unexpected.
New Zealand also weathered the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC).
Now, as then, the Government should work with firms to not only ensure they face up to their responsibilities as employers but also look at measures such as used during the GFC that can keep their workforces employed.
This week it was businesses' turn to feel the love.
There has been plenty of coverage of the impact on firms which do business with our major trading partner China.
Inevitably, Ardern will take a pasting from cynics who claim she is leveraging the potential pandemic to increase her leadership profile ahead of the September 19 general election.
That would be absurd and would simply backfire.
When a nation's citizens face an existential threat there is expectation of strong leadership from the top.
Right now, she is delivering.
