New Zealand will move into a snap minimum three-day lockdown after recording its first case of locally transmitted COVID-19 in six months, suspected to be the Delta variant, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Tuesday. 

"We have seen what can happen elsewhere if we fail to get on top of it. We only get one chance," Ardern said in a televised national address, calling the Delta strain "a game changer."

The lockdown will run seven days in Auckland, where the case was detected, but three days elsewhere.

(With input from Reuters and AFP)