The largest city in New Zealand A three-day lockdown began on Monday forcing two million people to stay home as authorities scramble to contain the country’s first outbreak of the highly contagious variant located in the United Kingdom.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered a 72-hour confinement in Auckland after three members of a family were found to be infected in the city.

Schools and non-essential businesses were forced to close and residents were prohibited from leaving the city except for some essential needs.

The Health Ministry said the sequencing showed that two of the cases were caused by the strain that was first detected in the UK. Evidence for the third person is still pending.

“This result reinforces the decision to take swift and forceful measures around the latest cases to detect and eradicate the possibility of any other transmission,” the ministry said.

It is the first lockdown in New Zealand in almost six months. The country was praised for its management of the pandemic, with just 25 deaths per a population of five million.

The rest of the country was put on a lower alert level, with the obligation to wear masks on public transport and meetings limited to a maximum of 100 people.