new zealand locked down the largest city, aukland, because of a small cluster of cases there. country had success containing the virus last year with an early and strict lockdown. aukland's mayor tells cnn they did the same thing this time. >> we have been really successful in dealing with containing covid after the initial outbreak and we were on a learning curve then. what we discovered was that the best way to contain the virus is to go strongly and go early. so for much of the period of the last, you know, 2 or 300 days we've been able to live our lives practically normally going about life without the need for facemasks, without the need for social distancing, but in a world that's -- you know, wrnl covid is so rampant you will be seeing it. the latest case is a family of three. the woman of the three worked in a service providing food and laundry services for international airlines and we suspect that that may be the connection and then her daughter and husband have contracted the virus. we've decided we should respond in the same way. after a bit of a weekend after watc

that's in response to new zealand locking down its largest city, aukland. three people there, a mother, father, daughter all contracted the coronavirus. two of them have the covid variant first found in the u.k. the lockdown order lasts until the end of wednesday. new zealand's prime minister acted immediately to stop the spread. let's turn to cnn correspondent will ripley joins me from hong kong. this is what we've seen from the leader of new zealand. she does move very swiftly. what more are you learning about the situation? >> reporter: hey, rosemary. she has just confirmed that in fact all three cases are that more contagious u.k. variant. she told that to public broadcaster rnz as proof that this strategy of even with just a handful of cases, disrupting a large number of people for hopefully a shorter period of time, in this case it's 72 hours while they conduct contact tracing, try to figure out how this mother, father, teenage gaut ter contracted this u.k. variant given that none of them had any recent travel history. they're looking at the mother's

. >>> new zealand's largest city aukland remains on lockdown until the end of wednesday.e new cases there are from the variant first found in the uk. new zealand's prime minister acted immediately to stop the spread. will ripley gives us more on what's been playing out in new zealand. >> for some people on the ground, hello, it's on again/off again with these lockdowns that they just get a handful of cases. six months ago, auckland went into this massive lockdown where people have to stay home unless they're going to the supermarket or pharmacy. essential workers can work but everybody else is not allowed. and some may say, look, when you just have three cases confined to a mother, a dad and teenage daughter, why disrupt this many people? but the message from the prime minister is that this is the formula that has worked that has helped new zealand if not eradicate covid-19, drastically reduce it to the point they don't have community transmission for weeks and weeks on end or months on end. and that allows life to return to normal quickly. listen to what the prime minist

they have a lockdown in aukland. will ripley is live in hong kong covering the story for us.ositive and the whole city is going on lockdown. tell us about it. >> reporter: the reason why new zee land health authorities are concerned is because they tested positive for the u.k. variant. nobody has traveled. they're in the process of intensive contact tracing to figure out if the virus is out there in the community or if the mother in this family who works at a company that provides laundry services and catering services for dozens of airlines may have somehow picked up the virus at work even though she didn't have face-to-face contact with anybody coming in from outside the country. to lockdown new zealand's largest city and have three confirmed cases so far might be overkill. in new zealand the prime minister said this is a formula that has worked, that has kept their country of just around 5 million people in remarkably good shape throughout the pandemic. if you look at the numbers of confirmed cases and deaths, they have just over 2300 cases for the entire pandemic and 25 d