New Zealand has its first death linked to coronavirus. The death was a woman in her 70s in Greymouth Hospital early this morning. She tested positive for the virus on Friday morning.
Standing in a queue snaking through Auckland Airport a few days before New Zealand went into lock down, Carolyn Kelly and husband Mark Johnston made an impossible decision.
They were supposed to move to Glasgow on Tuesday to start their new lives, but their Emirates flight was cancelled at thelast minute, well before the national lockdown began at 11.59pm Wednesday.
Their travel agent managed to get the pair one ticket out, leaving late last Monday. She told them to race to the airport and try to get another ticket.
On the way, Kelly spoke to her son about her idea.
"I said to my son, 'I think I need to tell your dad to go'."
"I thought, 'If we don't do this, we're going to go backwards, we're not going to go forwards'."
The pair, both Reverend Doctors, were last year offered jobs at Glasgow University - Kelly as the university chaplin and Johnston in the theology department.
A six month ordeal followed as they tried to secure work visas for the United Kingdom. A misunderstanding on the university's part meant Kelly wasn't able to secure a work visa with it, but Johnston was, and she was able to tag onto his.
Finally, at the end of February, their visas came through and the clock began ticking - they had only a month to get to the UK to pick up their two-year visa.
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But the worsening Covid-19 pandemic quickly decreased their travel options.
"We knew that the coronavirus was building up, so we were aware of the race to get things done," she said.
They booked a flight with Singapore Airlines for March 31. But their flight was axed after the airline announced it would not transit through Singapore.
"Then we booked on Emirates, one of the last tickets for 9pm on Tuesday, 24 March, still well within the lockdown period. We were just going to get out in time.
"On the Monday after the announcement of the lockdown in New Zealand, we were told Emirates wasn't taking passengers.
"I don't fully understand how we couldn't get out - we booked expensive tickets and went through a travel agent."
Carolyn Kelly told her husband t take the only available plane ticket to Glasgow after their flights were canceled at the last minute. Photo / Supplied
Their travel agent managed to find one ticket out, leaving Monday night and told them to race there to try to secure another ticket.
"When we walked through those doors and I saw the huge group of people, I thought 'All these people have really good reasons to go'.
"We stood for two to three hours in the queue and talked about the possibility of him going without me. I suggested it, he didn't like it.
"We told her our decision and she started to cry and we started to cry. We waited until the last minute."
"With him going it's terribly hard, we're very close. It's still very painful, I must say, and I know a lot of people are in a worse situation."
Mark Johnston has been in Glasgow without his wife since last week. Photo / Supplied
Increasing border closures have split up thousands of families and couples and disrupted the visas and travel plans of stranded New Zealanders internationally.
Queenstown-based British snowboard instructor Lara Suleyman, who has started a Facebook group Get Us Home.UK, says she has registered 2900 British travellers who are itching to get home.
Johnston safety arrived in Glasgow and Kelly is now staying with family in Auckland.
Shortly after he arrived Kelly received a photo of him and their daughter, who is based over there. They will hunker down together as the UK enters lockdown.
"When I saw that photo, I realised that's why I made the decision," Kelly said.
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She's now in limbo and desperate to join them. With the window on her visa slowing closing, Kelly hopes she can get there, somehow.
"The irony about this is I've done training in disaster spiritual care. That's partly why I need to be there, to support the university community.
"It's not just the physical essential services we need to help people to cope with these challenges and help our communities to remain healthy."
She's really supportive of the measures to reduce the transmission of Covid-19, but it needs to be done with care, she said.
"We know this could be a humanitarian crises of people's wellbeing and personal health and I think people in supportive roles need to be able to do our jobs."
"Can't we work together to move people who have a really good reason, or could we have a set of criteria and if they meet it then they will be prioritised for a flight?"
She has a flight booked in two weeks, but isn't confident it'll fly.
"I haven't got much of a window really to get our visa sorted...I don't have much here apart from my lovely family and friends, who I thought I'd said goodbye to."
