Covid-19: Hospital visitors restricted, toilet paper in hot demand in Canterbury
Hi Cantabrians,
Hundreds are queueing for Covid-19 tests in Christchurch, while grocery shoppers are heeding pleas to not panic buy as the country enters the first day of a nationwide lockdown.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the shift to alert level 4 for at least three days for the entire country after a 58-year-old Auckland man contracted Covid-19 from an unknown source.
On Wednesday, a long line of cars ran down the length of Orchard Rd near Christchurch Airport as people waited to access a Covid-19 testing centre – some as long as three hours. There were similar scenes at a centre on Pages Rd.
As panic buying set in after the 6pm announcement, some supermarkets were running out of toilet paper and flour. A number of photos had been shared on social media showing empty shelves and long queues.
Read the full story by clicking 'Read more' below.
Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
We hope this brings a smile!
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Share your favourite main crop potato recipe and win a copy of our mag!
Love potatoes? We will give away free copies of the May 2026 issue to readers whose potato recipes are used in our magazine. To be in the running, make sure you email your family's favourite way to enjoy potatoes: mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz, by March 1, 2026.
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