New Zealand will begin moving citizens to compulsory quarantine or "managed isolation" starting Friday as they return from overseas, stepping up its efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 halfway through a four-week nationwide lockdown.

"No one goes home, everyone goes into a managed facility," the country's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference, adding that 14 days spent in a government-approved facility would be a prerequisite for all foreign travelers.

New Zealand entered a four-week lockdown, or epidemic response Alert Level 4, from midnight March 25 to curb the spread of the virus.

The country now has registered over 1,230 COVID-19 cases with one death, data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University showed.