So, we have all non-essential social contact banned. We have, um, two weeks of self-isolation if you're symptomatic and 12 weeks for vulnerable people, especially older people. Over the next few months, self-isolation is gonna be one of the most important skills to protect the people we love, so...w do we do this? Well, I think there's a huge amount of confusion. There's a lot to find out. And the first thing I'm gonna do is go see a professor of intensive care. And he is an absolute expert in keeping the sickest people in the world alive. What I want to find out from him is how and why we should self-isolate. So, look, I thought, really, you're the first person I've turned to with this, because I think we're in this very odd situation. It's like nothing anyone from certainly our generation has face before. Absolutely, yeah. On an individual risk, most people don't have to worry. But let me give you some simple maths. You're a smart enough fellow. Right, so normal flu, if I get that, I'm going to infect, on average, about 1.3, 1.4 people, OK? If there was such a division. Yeah. And if those 1.3, 1.4 people gave it to the next lot, that's the second time it gets passed on. By the time that gets passed on 10 times, I've been responsible for a out 14 cases of flu. This coronavirus is very, very infectious, so every person passes it to three. Now, that doesn't sound like much of a difference. But if each of those three passes it to three and that happens at 10 layers, I have been responsible for infecting 59,000 people. Now... I actually wasn't on top of that maths when you were doing that. OK, that did come as a shock, yeah. Now, most people are gonna feel a bit pokey or not very pokey and be just fine. But they will have spread it around. And a few will get sick at about day 10 of their illness. So they will need to come to a hospital. And when they're in hospital, they will consume resources and time and people will look after them, quite rightly. And they will be monitored to see if they become really, really sick. Those people then come to an intensive care unit, and that's where, if you're critically ill, your life gets saved or not. And this is the issue. If we've got a limited resource, which we have, a limited number of ventilators, a limited number of doctors, a limited number of nurses ` which is fine, because we can't run ourselves with a huge excess capacity all the time ` if we overwhelm that, we can't provide that service of caring for these people properly. Why kind of symptoms should we be looking for? How are we gonna know if we've got this? The symptoms are, for most people, spread across a bunch of things ` not everyone gets all of them. Dry cough is common. That's really common. So a dry, hacking cough. But some people will also have a bit of a sore throat. Some people will also have a bit of a runny nose. But not all of them ` this is not the classic pouring snot, sore throat, in most people. Upwards of a third will have a headache. You get that with viral infections. People will feel achy. And high temperatures are not at all uncommon with this, either. And when I say high, properly elevated temperatures, and sometimes very high indeed ` so, I was talking a friend on the phone the other day who's locked away in Cambridge with this, and he had a temperature of 40.6. That's getting... pretty high. This isn't the end of the world, is it? No, we've gotta remember that this is... I'm not gonna play it down. It's gonna be ugly. It's gonna be horrible for a large number of people. But it will be a small number of people who get properly sick and a smaller percentage of those, again, that need to come to an intensive care unit. And we can save the lives of a large number of those people, too. But please just remember that the best chance we can give for the people who do fall ill is if we've got enough beds and enough staff and enough kit to be able to be there for you. And if you are irresponsible enough to think that you don't mind if you get the flu, remember, it's not about you, it's about everybody else. Hugh's so knowledgeable, and he is taking this seriously, and so we all should be. I feel a bit more serious now, but I also feel quite empowered. I understand why it's so important. And so the crucial thing now is we can all play a part in slowing this down. The key to that is self-isolation. So I need to figure out how to do it really well. I only really started showing symptoms properly this morning. So I guess we have another week from today. It was a pretty tough decision to make, because obviously we've got a little boy. He's 2 years old. And so we had to make that call about how we were gonna go about it. There was obviously no preparation. We had no idea. I guess it either means self-isolating so you don't catch it, or self-isolating because you have it and you don't want other people to get it. We're just gonna have to sit it out and see what happens and see how the advice changes. We've been asked to self-isolate and keep our distance from other people ` 2m is the recommended amount. Why? Well, one of the things that coronavirus does is it gives you a cough. So I've set up an experiment. I've got ultraviolet lights, slow-motion cameras and a fluorescent drink, and I'm gonna have a look into how the virus moves from one person to another ` how far can a cough spread? Make my saliva fluorescent. (COUGHS) If I measure 2m from where I was standing, what you can see is that almost all the droplets have landed before 2m. Not all of them ` you're not completely safe. But you're at much lower risk the further away you are from other people. These are real droplets containing real saliva, and they would all contain viral particles. So that's why we've got to wipe surfaces, we've got to wash our hands and we've got to keep our distance from other people. Self-isolating can be a challenging experience, whether you have symptoms or not. I'm getting some tips on how to maintain a positive attitude from psychologist Kimberley Wilson. Hey, hey. How are you? Thank you for coming over. Normally I'd give you a hug or something, but... (LAUGHS) This is different times. No hugs. Apart from people who are severely ill, for most of us self-isolating, the big issues are psychological ` is that right? I think it's fair to say that this is an unprecedented event, and more than ever, we're gonna have general levels of anxiety. We're quite used to talking about anxiety in individual people, people who might be particularly vulnerable to it. But actually this is gonna be anxiety on a national and international level. Big things that people are gonna be thinking about are managing anxiety, boredom and frustration. So, how am I gonna manage my boredom? It's not OK just to have a few books and think that your phone or a few movies is gonna do it. You need to be much more creative. Puzzles, games, maybe crafts, maybe teach yourself to knit. Having lots of different options and different modalities, just to give everyone a little bit of novelty. You're almost describing, like, a school timetable. (LAUGHS) Kind of. People probably should have some sort of routine. The thing about these sorts of days is that they will stretch, and they'll kind of bleed into each other, and you could end up just lying around not doing very much. And so actually it might be worth having a bit of a sense of, 'Well, by the end of a week, I want to have accomplished this.' And that will give you something to focus on ` a target to move towards. So we need routine. Yeah. And I think one of the things that people perhaps don't realise is that routine helps us to manage and contain our anxiety. What about the cabin fever, where you really start to get, like, almost itchy, you wanna be outside so much? We all do have a need to move and kind of stretch ourself or just feel like we have the freedom to get up, open our door and take a walk outside. And especially if you're gonna be in with other people, that frustration will build. And so what I suggest is having a bit of an escape room. So that can be just a little space in the house or in your room you can just go and be by yourself. And the rule should be if someone's in the escape room, you leave them alone, give them some space. Even if you're a one-room flat with three or four people, having some space that you can briefly call your own... Absolutely. I love that. Cos we all, as much as we're social animals, we all do have a need for quiet, for peace, for a little bit of a break from other humans. And so even if it's just a cushion in the corner of a room, and you face the walls, and you have your book, you can feel as if you have a tiny moment of peace and quiet. We're gonna have to be creative about the ways that we manage these unusual circumstances and these new difficulties that we're all gonna be facing. OK, let me tell you my anxieties. I'm worried that I might die or I might be really ill and have a horrible moment of going, 'Do I need to go to hospital or not?' I'm much more worried that my parents will... die, which even saying that out loud sounds... it sounds bad to say it. Yeah. No, I think that it's really worth saying that. And we shouldn't call it morbid, because that's really the underlying anxiety that many people are gonna have, right? Of illness or potentially death. And it's worth being able to say that out loud, so we don't feel as though we're having to hide our true anxieties and feel like we're having to keep it all to ourselves. And the more than we can have these conversations, even in a very gentle way, then that's OK. And it's probably also worth saying that it's OK to have a bit of dark humour about it. Humour is one of that ways that humans manage very, very difficult circumstances. What happens when you feel anxious is that your thinking shuts down and the part of you that can think more rationally about the future kind of gets a little bit disrupted, and all you can think about, perhaps, is the worst and the catastrophe and the worry and the feeling is that this will last forever. So it's always worth finding ways to remind yourself that it won't last forever. It will end. It will be difficult, but we will come through the other end of it. You're watching a Newshub special documentary on how to self-isolate. A quick reminder that here in New Zealand, we must all stay home for the next four weeks, and if you've got to go to the supermarket, the recommended distance to stay away from people is at least 2m. For more information, just head to covid19.govt.nz. Just head ` we hear from people who've already been in self-isolation and what the experience has been like for them. Don't worry. During that time... ...including medicine, food and other home supplies. It's been quite difficult, having our little boy. He's only 2 years old. Just keep trying to keep the kids calm and enjoying themselves. Already they're telling each other, 'You sneezed. You've got coronavirus. Don't come near me. Don't sleep with me. 'Stay away from me. Don't hug me.' I don't want to get ill. And I heard the coronavirus was just like a flu. Boring. (LAUGHS) The word 'coronavirus' will be etched into their brain for life. I want to understand more about the virus itself, so I'm meeting virologist Elisebetta Groppelli from St George's Hospital. She's asked to meet at my house rather than a public place, to minimise the risk of transmission. Medical training, we focus on learning about diseases that we know about, and you have to learn about the disease, but nobody really fully understands this virus yet. Can you give me a sense of, I dunno, almost the virus' personality? Like, how is it moving? What can we compare it to? All viruses certainly have one personality trait, which is they are clever. And this particular one is clever in the sense that it's able to transmit via droplets as we cough. And that's a pretty efficient way of going from one person to another. Because viruses are parasites, so they need to go into a human host, replicate, which means making more of themselves, and then go on to infect someone else. And if you think that this droplet, the cough that is a symptom, is how the virus spreads, you can also think how clever it is, because it's a very efficient way. But it's also new ` novel. It's a virus that comes from a different environment. Probably it's been circulating in some kind of animal reservoir. And it started liking us. And so that's the danger. It's nice to be liked, but certainly not by a virus that we have never seen. And it becomes more dangerous for us because as a society, as a population, if we've never seen a virus, none of us has any weapons against it. You've got this virus that's very clever, very sneaky, and very new, so we don't really understand the enemy. How do we stop it moving from person to person? So, we do have, already, key pieces of information. The coughing is the way the virus uses to travel. So that's the fundamentals of physical distancing, like we're doing now. We're keeping a metre, possibly a little bit more. Therefore, the virus, if I happen to be infected, the virus will actually land before it comes into your personal space. The other aspect is actually the virus can land on to surfaces. And we might touch those surfaces. As human beings, we do a lot of things with our hands, including touching our mouth, our nose or glasses, like in my case. And all of these things basically scoop up the virus and they bring it to where it wants to be. So this is the fundamentals of keeping your distance and wash your hands and clean the surfaces. I feel like I'm hearing at the moment a lot of people, maybe particularly outside of London, going, 'OK, look, we have flu. We have other viruses. What's the big deal? 'This seems to mostly affect the elderly, so it's not going to affect people of working age. 'Why all the fuss? Why are we shutting everything down? What's the big deal' Because actually, this is much more than just a flu infection. And the evidence is that 80% of the infected people will only develop mild symptoms. But this also means that 20% will actually need hospitalisation, so will need to go to hospital and properly be taken care of. And a portion of these patients will actually require intensive care. So this is 20%. This is one in five. It's a lot. Flu does not have this kind of severity of symptoms in this large proportion. And there is also something else to be said. We do have vaccines for flu. We do not have this with this coronavirus. So we're are particularly vulnerable. Why is self-isolation so important? This is a pandemic. And 'pandemic' is a word that we use not just to describe the fact that the virus is everywhere on this planet, but also that it actually effects everybody, every single on of us on this planet in all the aspects of our life. You're watching a Newshub special documentary on how to self-isolate. COVID-19 is a new virus that can affect your lungs and airways. The symptoms include a dry cough, fever, and shortness of breath. So, what does it actually feel like to have it? My symptoms started with a sore throat. Started to get a cough this morning. After about a day, I would say, it translated to a cough. I am setting up an inflatable mattress in our bedroom. Erm, you're meant to be 2m away from everyone, at least. And I've also just had flu-like symptoms, in the sense that sometimes I've got really cold, sometimes I've got really hot. And so this all just feels a little bit strange. I just feel not nice, man. The rules of how and when to self-isolate are complicated. And so it's easy to get caught up in them and forget that a lot of us are gonna be at home feeling poorly, and we're gonna need to manage that as well. So, if we look in the medicine cabinet, we've got a few things. The most common symptom of coronavirus is fever. We've got two ways of treating fever. We've got paracetamol and ibuprofen. Almost everyone's got a pack of those in their house. Paracetamol works really well. There has been some controversy about ibuprofen. Some people are saying it can make the symptoms worse and make the disease last longer or make it more severe. So I would say start with the paracetamol and see how you get on. The other really severe symptom of coronavirus that people talk about is the cough, and that can be very, very difficult for people. Now, if you go to the chemist, you will find lots and lots of cough remedies. Most of them don't work brilliantly. You may have a very severe cough, and these are not gonna do very much good. But they might make you feel a little bit better. The final thing lots of people are getting really into is vitamins. These are my vitamins in my medicine cabinet. I take them sometimes when I'm feeling poorly, despite the fact that I know they don't really work. So it's a judgement-free zone. If you want to take vitamins, go ahead. But they're a bit of a waste of money. So, in fact, most of the ways of managing illness at home do not lie in the medicine cabinet. There are some old home remedies that work pretty well. Make yourself a lemon and honey drink. That may help a bit with the cough, it'll keep you hydrated, and it tastes nice. Stay hydrated. Everyone should be drinking so that you're peeing regularly. You don't have to go overboard, but you do lose a bit more fluid if you have a fever. The other thing is, if you've got a fever, simple things like damp towel pressed to your forehead, the back of your neck or your wrists can really make things feel a lot better. In terms of nutrition, lots of people talk about special foods you should eat when you're ill. To be honest, eat what you like. Your body will guide you. If you're not hungry, relax about it. You'll be fine for a couple of days. If you're hungry for specific foods, go ahead and treat yourself. There are two things that are really important, and the first is rest. It sounds obvious, but I think as a nation we have a tendency to try and soldier on. Well, won't do that. Relax, stay in bed, take it easy. But the other important thing is mobilise. You have to keep moving a little bit, because you don't want blood clots in your legs and you don't want your lungs to shut down. So a few times a day, get out of bed, take a little walk around, shake your legs out, and open your lungs, fill them up, try and open those air spaces. And that will help keep them healthy. I hope those things will help most of us get through it, but a few of us are going to get severely ill. If you're very short of breath or you're feeling very bad, you do need to seek help. You can't help but worry about the over-70s, you know? And everybody who's in that risk category. My mum's diabetic and in quite poor health in general. My sister's asthmatic as well. I've got an elderly mother who's 87 who's got a lot of underlying health conditions, and she's currently got a bad cough and a cold. It's families sticking together and just reaching out generally that will pull through. It's not just people with symptoms who have been asked to self-isolate. People over 70 and those who are vulnerable have also been asked to minimise social contact. I'm going to meet Peter Snow and his wife, Ann, who have already been self-isolating for a week at the insistence of their son Dan. Dan, are you here? Yes. How are you doing? Very, very nice to see you. You all right? Come on in. What strange circumstances to see you in. I know, man. It's strange times. So, Mum and Dad are in the house. Mum and Dad are in the house. And you're not going in the house, is that right? I am not going in the house, no. It's lucky it's a nice day, so we can hang out a little bit in the garden or I can talk to them through the doors. And I asked them to go in about a week ago, yeah. My parents have to sons who are doctors, and we've been slow. We sort of went, I think, life as normal until you hear otherwise. You've been much, much more proactive. So tell me about the thinking with that. My dad's got bad lungs. He's in his 80s. He's just absolutely straight in the crosshairs. Why not isolate? If I can keep him alive till hopefully some drugs change, situation changes. we can flatten the curve, the ventilators will be available in the hospitals, whatever it might be, I thought, why not? It's the least I can do. When I came round a week ago, my dad was clearly ` I could tell, looking at him, he was nervous, should he be meeting up with his neighb`? And I said, 'Right, let's just make this really simple. Let's go into lockdown.' Hey, Mum and Dad. How are you? Good, Danny boy. Good. That's about 2m. It's very nice to see you. I'm sorry. I feel like under other circumstances, I'd give you a hug or a handshake at least. You look all right to me. We're all fine. How long has it been? Well, we rather enjoy life, so we thought we'd jump the gun. And we've started self-isolating about a week ahead of time. So here we are. We're enjoying it, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah, how's it going, Mum? It's good. It's good, surprisingly. Mixed reviews. No, no, it's very good. I mean, my big thing is we're being very positive ` at least, I am. Me too. And I'm saying, 'This is it. We're awake today. We're alive.' It's spring. There are flowers coming out in the garden. We can come and do gardening in a minute. We're reading a lot. We're chatting a lot. Dan and his children do FaceTime with us. That's really important. It's true you're being positive, but you are eight years younger than I am. So I'm being very positive, but I do bear in mind that I'm more likely for the high jump than she is. I guess one of the things we're all saying about this virus is that it probably isn't gonna go away. It will keep circulating. Eventually you're gonna go out into the world, and it will still be there. A week ago I was tossing a coin ` Ann got very cross at me ` thinking, quite honestly, 'Let's just catch this damn thing.' Let's go out and sort of say, 'Come on, virus. Come and get me.' Because there's obviously a very great temptation to have it and then to be one of the recovered people and hopefully immune after that ` I don't know about the immunity, but there we are. But then the trouble is that my doctor, that same day, said, 'Look, old chap, don't get infected. It's not really worth your while.' If I caught it and then gave it to Peter, I would never forgive myself. I still wake up in the morning thinking, 'Hang on, four months ahead, it's gonna be dodgy.' A lot of people will be immune, because they'll have had it. We won't have. We're just not crossing that bridge till we get to it. You're right to approach it with this kind of spirit, I think. You don't need my endorsement, but it does seem right. (CHUCKLES) Whatever. We haven't got goodbye so well. I guess a wave. We don't have to reinvent the wave. A virtual hug. Exactly. See you later on, guys. Bye-bye. Take care. I'll close the door. How worried are you feeling? I'm very worried. Really? Yeah. I mean, I'm not a doctor, so I'm just reading... crazy Facebook posts all day. But I'm worried. I'm worried about my mum and dad. I'm worried about my family. And then I'm worried about the community. I'm worried about the country. And the strange thing is me standing in this garden where I grew up ` I played on this lawn. And now I'm here putting my parents into isolation. When I came to this house, my dad kept saying, 'Thanks.' And I brought some pasta round, and... And I thought, 'What are you saying thank you to me for?' It's difficult, isn't it? You think a lot about... TEARFULLY: He kept me alive for... 18 years, you know. So I'm gonna get him through the next six months. It's my job. With millions of us facing a period of self-isolation, many of us are worried about food. Nutritional psychologist Kimberley Wilson is on her way to a local shop to see what's still available. I think with the prospect of self-isolation, people are really thinking about making sure that they have enough food in for seven or perhaps 14 days of being inside the house. And what's gonna be really important is making sure not only that there's enough food but making sure that there's nutritious food in the house. Because the last thing we want is people to become unwell or malnourished while they're self-isolating. But we need to stay calm, focus on what we do need, and remember that other people will need food as well, and that we also have a bit of a responsibility to our community to ensure that there's enough on the shelves for everyone else. Let's see what we've got. All right, so... I'll grab some... tomato puree. In a pinch, this can be used as a base to your tomato sauce. You can just dilute down a tablespoon or two. So looking for versatile ingredients that you can use in lots of different ways is gonna be really important. The canned fish is a great option. Really rich in omega-3, which is really important for your brain health. But also, again, really versatile. You can have it in a snack, add it to sauces, blend it up into a pate, all sorts of things. A curry paste. Who doesn't love a curry? Stock cubes. Cheese ` A) lasts a long time if it's sealed, but can also be frozen. Maybe some peanut butter. Not just for toast, but actually it can make the base of sauces, too. Onions are, I think, are an absolute essential. They are a staple. They will last forever and ever and ever in a cool, dry place. Hello. Hi there. Is there any flour, or are you all sold out on that? Unfortunately, we ran out. Yeah, all gone. Really? We were expecting a delivery today, but we didn't receive it. Gosh. People are panicking. They buy whatever they see on the shelf. Just pulling things off the shelves? Mostly the flour, rice, pastas, this kind of thing, they will buy a lot, actually. A hundred people been waiting in the queue. You've had queues? We had a big queue the last three, four, five days, yeah. Gosh. So actually this is a quiet day now? This is a quiet day. Quietest day since the beginning, yeah. I'm not worrying. We'll be all right. All right. I'm off. Thank you. Take care. Stay well. You too. Thank you. Bye-bye. I have managed to get the basics that I wanted ` so, some beans and pulses, some rice, some canned fish, some canned tomatoes, some spices, and that really should be good for the store cupboard, to get me through, and I can stock up with little bits on the way if I need to. Just a reminder that New Zealand is currently on alert level four, meaning everyone must stay at home. Essential work and supermarket trips are permitted, but people must stay at least 2m apart. For more information, just head to covid19.govt.nz. Coming up ` how to keep your house as clean as possible in the COVID-19 outbreak. So, one of the difficult things for people who are self-isolating or the people around them is that you get paranoid that you've got this source of infection in your house. You can get obsessed with cleaning. Well, it is good to keep things clean, but remember, you're not trying to cover your house in toxic chemicals and kill the virus completely. We can't stop the virus. We're trying to slow it down. So you can do it pretty simply. For most of the house, people should be doing things like touching light switches with their elbows ` if they need to touch them at all. Toasters, kettles, do you need to touch them if you're self-isolating? Someone else can make you a cup of tea. But in a shared space like this bathroom ` most people are gonna have to share a bathroom ` you might spend a lot of time in here, and if you're symptomatic, you're gonna be coughing on everything. How do you keep it clean? Well, actually, it's not very different to normal cleaning, OK? The most important thing is mechanical removal, by which I mean just wiping surfaces. So I've got normal all-purpose cleaner. It doesn't have to kill 1000% of all known germs, OK? And the main thing is a wet cloth, a bit of a spray, and give it a wipe. OK? And surfaces that you might have touched or coughed on, you just want to get those droplets off, get a bit of cleaner on them, wash the cloth, hang it out to dry. And that's all you're trying to do. We don't have to feel guilty about this, and we don't have to feel paranoid about it. It's been a bit of a whirlwind, in terms of new news coming out every day. It's definitely been quite mentally challenging. I do feel, like, worried, what if I got it? I'm scared a lot. How about you, Tommy? Um,... I'm fine. I want to find out more about the scientific research which is helping shape the government's response to the pandemic. I'm meeting Adam Kucharski, one of the experts at the forefront of the fight against the virus. This is about as close as we're getting. There we go. OK. An air elbow bump. Look, come and... I'm very excited to talk to you, actually. I think this bench is wide enough. We're outdoors. We're OK. Yeah. Yeah. So, look, tell me a bit. You are an epidemiologist, modeller of epidemics. You work at the London School of Tropical Medicine, which is one of the places that's sending information and advice to the government. You've written books about how epidemics spread. What does your life look like at the moment? At the moment, we're doing a lot of work to try and understand as much as we can about how this thing transmits and what we can do to control it. Early on, a couple of months ago, we were trying to look at where's the spread? What's important? As, in China, these lockdowns came in, what effect is that that having? How much is that reducing transmission? Now we're looking a lot more at this different kinds of interactions, different interventions, what might actually work at bringing this transmission down? But you're not just pulling things out of the air, are you? You're actually building computer models ` simulations, almost ` of the virus. Is that right? Yeah, we're doing a whole mix of stuff. It's not just that you've got one model here. We've looked at, for example, these lockdowns. What's the reduction, on average? How many people are spreading it at the start and at the end? We've looked at things like close gatherings. How much transmission ` if 10 people attend a meal, what's the risk to people who go to that? So it's really all these bits of evidence, and then trying to bring them together, to try and work out what the most effective ways of controlling this are. And we'll say, if you close schools for two months, this is what this will probably look like. If you get the elderly and risk groups to isolate for 12 weeks, this is what the outbreak will look like. And then it really feeds up the chain into government, and then they have to make those decisions of what combination of measures do we think is appropriate. At the moment, we seem to be doing different things to other countries. We haven't locked down the way China did early on. We haven't closed borders like Germany. Are we doing the right thing? Countries at the moment that are saying that they're gonna close things down for a couple of weeks, that's not what's gonna happen, because once those interventions go in, it's gonna be very tough to lift them without the risk of another outbreak. I think really that's the balance that the UK and other countries will have to strike, of we need to reduce transmission, but equally, people need some kind of ability to live their lives in the meantime. Is the point of self-isolation to reverse this? Can we stop the epidemic? I think the real point of self-isolation is it can have an enormous effect on reduction in transmission. It won't control it by itself. But that action, if you think of it, is a disruption of a couple of weeks of your life. But that could potentially reduce transmission by 20%, 30%. My minimal experience of working in epidemics is the one thing about them is that they do end. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Am I right about that? Have you got any optimism about this? We've got a really, really difficult situation we find ourselves in. Because usually an epidemic that's mild, eventually people might build herd immunity if this spreads long enough. That's how epidemics end, if enough people end up infected. But to get to that position, so many people would be ill, and it would take so long, and there would be so much burden on the NHS, it's unlikely we'll see that any time soon. So I think really, until we get a vaccine or a treatment or much more effective testing, we're stuck in this situation where we're gonna have to make really dramatic changes to our lives. Anyone suggesting that there's something easy, or a two-week lockdown, and then we can get back to life is really not what's gonna happen. Whatever we do, we're potentially gonna have to face for a year or two. Talking to Adam, I get a very strong sense that anyone who believes we can do a quick two-week lockdown and the virus will go away, they're wrong and they're underestimating the problem. We are in this for the long haul. It's gonna be very tough, probably for everyone, and for some people more than others. And we're all gonna be involved in making it work. I'm quite good at, like, lazing about and not doing very much with myself. I'm quite good at being a bit of a slob. There is a certain serenity to surrendering yourself. We've got board games. We've got Pictionary. We've got building blocks for my son. We're just watching reruns of Peppa Pig a lot and just eating everything in the house. I've probably spent more time on the phone and on FaceTime to family than I have done in years. And also, I changed my bedclothes and cleaned my flat, you know, to just sort of clear the decks. Just trying not to climb the walls, really. For many of us, the prospect of being stuck at home and not being able to exercise is a stressful idea. But it is possible to keep fit at home. And fitness instructor Sammy has kindly offered to share some tips with me. Almost everyone in the country is gonna be isolated at some point, pretty much stuck at home. So everyone is gonna need to keep their spirits up and their fitness up. Talk me through some simple things about what to do. OK, I think it's just about finding things you enjoy to do, to start with. And it doesn't have to be high energy. It can be yoga, Pilates. A really simple way is as a HIIT time, it would be pick five exercises you enjoy and do 40 seconds of work with 20 seconds of rest. For you, maybe a normal squat would just look like this ` so down and up. Beautiful. Look at that. You do know what you're doing. And that could turn into a squat jump ` so a real plyo movement there. All right? Watch your head. So, that would be you, squat jumps. Beautiful. Just like that. Yay! Look at that. Beautiful. This is what I was dreading you were gonna make me do. And actually... Actually, he's loving it. This actually would be something my parents could do as well. For sure. That could literally be for an older person, standing up and down 10 times. So releasing the feet. Squeeze out at the top. Nice and steady pace. So, you could do that for 40 seconds. Nice. Seven. Oh, you're getting quicker. Six. (LAUGHS) Five. I wanna see those knees all the way to the chest. Tap it, tap it, tap it. Yes. Go on! How much longer can you hold that? Go, go, go! Yes, yes. Use those arms. For the older generation, what I'd suggest, you could do some knees to chest, and just squeeze and hold. So they could literally hold and support, bring that knee to chest, squeeze, and just release. And you can do that while you're chatting to someone, right? For sure. I mean, I'm lazy, and I don't mind doing this. (LAUGHS) Tap, tap, tap, tap. Drive it. Drive it. Don't have the pace on this that you do. Nice. So that's a half burpee. Oh, what? What? Yeah, that's a half one. A full burpee, you drop the whole chest to the floor and release the hands and then jump up. One, two, three. Yes, nice. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Breathe. (EXHALES) Look, Sammy, you're brilliant. I really feel good. And what I love about this is it's something that I can do, my dad can do, and someone who's super fit like you can do. We could all manage to do this every day. Yep. I love it. Just setting those goals and getting it done. You're wonderful. I'd give you a hug, but I'm too sweaty, and coronavirus, so... (LAUGHS) All right. Lovely. So, figuring out how long we should self-isolate for isn't as complicated as it seems. If you live alone, like I do, then if I get symptoms, I have to self-isolate for seven days from the first day of symptoms. Now, if you live with other people, it's a bit different. So in order to explain it, I have borrowed this family from a friend of mine. Now, I wasn't able to borrow a doll's house, so instead I'm gonna use a cardboard box. So, this family live in this house. Let me sketch out what it looks like here. There they are in the living room. And these are two bedrooms here. At the moment, they're all in the living room. Let's imagine that on the first day of the month, this member of the household gets symptoms ` a cough, a fever. Now, they have to self-isolate from everyone else in the household if they can. But everyone in the household is now self-isolating for 14 days. They can't leave the house, even if someone else develops symptoms in the first seven days. So if you're seven days in and you develop symptoms, this person now has to self-isolate ` I'm gonna put them in the other bedroom. This is difficult to manage for a lot of families, but let's say they're having a good go at it. There are two people self-isolated, and these people have to self-isolate for the full 14 days. Now, the only thing that's complicated is that after seven days, if someone else develops symptoms ` suppose this person develops symptoms on day 13 ` then they have to self-isolate for a further seven days, but no one else in the household does. If you're feeling poorly, it's very hard to remember how long you've been feeling poorly for. So get a calendar or draw a calendar, put Post-it notes on the fridge, anything you want to do, but keep track of these days, because you don't want to be self-isolating any longer than you need to be. I can't imagine trying to self-isolate when there's other people in the house. That would just be a nightmare. It would be so difficult to stay in one room. If I'm in a room for a while, I'll just spray down the surfaces that I've been around and I'll cough into a tissue, and then I'll bin that, and I'll sanitise my hands. My housemates have been doing everything for me, in terms of, like, cooking. I've not been super hungry, but they've cooked meals for me and gone and bought different supplies. They've been really nice. You're watching a Newshub special documentary on how to self-isolate. Remember, in New Zealand, we are currently at alert level four, meaning everyone must self-isolate. For information specific to New Zealand, visit covid19.govt.nz. And if you think you have the symptoms, you can call Healthline on 0800 358 5453. Coming up ` we take a look at the science behind the lockdown. Don't worry. During that time... ...including medicine, food and other home supplies. I'm on my way to see Jenny Harries, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer. And she's someone that I've been watching on the TV all week. And I feel somewhat reassured by some of those conferences but also have I felt, like everyone else, a certain amount of frustration ` like, why don't they have all the answers? Why do the guidelines keep changing? Why can't they tell us what to do and what's gonna happen? And speaking to the scientists I've spoken to this week, I think the sense I have is they are doing their best. They're guided by the data. Things will change as the data change. So... I really want to get some clarity from her about the government's strategy, about how it's emerging, and what we can all do going forwards, particularly around self-isolation, to try and slow this down. I would imagine this is a very strange situation for you to be in, because this is a disease we haven't faced before, and it's not really like any other disease we've faced before. Is that approximately right? We haven't had a new disease like this in recent time, which is likely to affect a whole population, where we have very little that we can offer, apart from good clinical care. The best thing we can offer are these public health interventions to prevent the disease spreading and protect those most at risk. There are people who have been very anxious, and I feel like at least on my social media, and I think a lot on the news, there have been even prominent scientists, and some of them prominent doctors, saying we're not doing enough, we're behind Italy, we're not doing as good a job as Korea. And I think that's creating quite a lot of anxiety in many people's minds about whether or not the government is taking the right approach. Can you talk about the strategy? It's very difficult to get across to the broader public, particularly at a time of anxiety, with the new disease, quite how much work there is sitting behind this. So for the last 10, 15 years almost, we've had pandemic flu preparedness right across the country. That's not just on the medical side. It's about if a large number of people are unwell, what happens in local communities, if we need army support or there's unrest ` all sorts of things. That is practice we exercise routinely to manage these sorts of things. We're looking at every intervention. So all of the things that you've seen put in place internationally we have looked at to see what the effect would be in our own population. And we have prioritised those and looked at when they would be most effective at which point in our epidemic curve. And what you will have seen recently is we've highlighted the ones that are really important ` so, this self-isolation and family isolation if you have symptoms, and then tucking yourselves away and reducing your social interactions, social distancing, for other groups. And then increasingly, we're adding in bits if they will add just that little bit of additional benefit. So school closures, for example, adds a small benefit, because it reduces our overall social contact. We've seen in China, there have been doors to apartment blocks welded shut. Italy's on full lockdown. Should we be doing that? So, I mean, Italy, as an example, as a country which stopped flights coming in, of course is actually probably the most affected country in Europe now. So there's not always a logical outcome to the things which people think are the things that we should do. And I would just challenge back by what we mean by lockdown. What we have done here, as we've said, is have a plan. We've looked at every intervention that you could possibly do, including shutting borders and doing various other things. They all add a very small amount, potentially. But we have to have a balance between keeping people safely in their homes as well as shutting down. If we put too tight a restriction on, we may well find that they elderly lady who's your patient with a significant disease, if it's not carefully timed or planned, it will have no effect on our epidemic curve, but it could cause significant distress to that individual and even her other health conditions. Having talked to Jenny Harries, I have a very clear sense of how central self-isolation is to the government's strategy, both for the vulnerable and for people with symptoms. That is the main way that we slow down the spread of this virus. I guess I also felt quite reassured at the end of it. I've seen people panicking and not coping, and saying, 'No, no, we've got a plan, especially in epidemics.' And actually, you think, 'Do you have a plan? I don't think you're coping.' And I had no sense of that from her. It felt to me like the government is being led by the science, and that the science is pretty good. Maybe it's not perfect ` it's a new disease. But by doing the things we're being told to do, we will slow this epidemic down. Thanks for joining us for this Newshub special documentary on how to self-isolate. You can follow our continuing coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic at Newshub.co.nz and by tuning in to Newshub Live at 6pm right here on Three. I'm Mike McRoberts. Goodnight. Captions by James Brown Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2020