Covid 19 coronavirus: What you need to know about Monday's Covid-19 stories

In day 5 of the Covid-19 lockdown, the Prime Minister announced a new website for people to report concerns about supermarket price rises and we learned more about the quiet, stay-at-home great-grandmother who became New Zealand's first Covid-19 casualty. Get all the highlights and read the full stories in the links below.

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Key developments in NZ

• Catch up with all the latest news here. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a website for people to raise concerns about supermarket price rises during the coronavirus lockdown. She said a decision on whether supermarkets would open over the Easter weekend would be made tomorrow. Sick leave for essential workers was also discussed at Cabinet. Ardern said they were "urgently working" on guidance in this area. Rules on essential services will be adjusted to make sure people can buy items such as heaters in time for winter.

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• Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield says there are 76 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, taking the total to 589. Twelve people are in hospital, three are expected to be discharged soon. One person in hospital with coronavirus died yesterday in Greymouth.

• That person - the first Covid-linked death in New Zealand - was a quiet great-grandmother whose family say she barely travelled from her West Coast home. Anne Guenole, 73, died on Monday morning days after testing positive for Covid-19. She had been admitted to Grey Base Hospital in Greymouth on Wednesday with suspected influenza.

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• And science reporter Jamie Morton explains how researchers have offered the Government some "Plan B" options – such as trying to delay a peak in Covid-19 cases until next year – if New Zealand's promising elimination strategy fails.

Around the world

• The widespread belief that Covid-19 started in a Chinese seafood market and spread from there across the globe has been challenged. Covid-19 could have spread among humans for years or even decades before now, a team of scientists has discovered. The virus may have jumped from animals to humans long before the first detection in Wuhan, according to research by an international team of scientists. An Italian scientist says unusual cases of pneumonia in November and December could mean that virus was already circulating in Lombardy, Italy's worst-hit region, before people were aware of what was unfolding in Wuhan.

• Aggressive screening might have helped contain the coronavirus in the United States. But technical flaws, regulatory hurdles and lapses in leadership let it spread undetected for weeks, New York Times reporters reveal.

• Meanwhile in a cheeky Facebook post, Australians dissatisfied with the leadership of Prime Minister Scott Morrison are banding together to call for New Zealand to annex Australia so the country can be under Jacinda Ardern's leadership.

The long-term consequences

• Unlike most plagues, Covid-19 doesn't seem to threaten everyone equally. While the young are by no means immune, coronavirus disproportionately harms the old. Camilla Cavendish of the Financial Times ponders the awkward question - should we really be sabotaging the economy and the futures of the young to save grandma?

• Patrick Smellie says every New Zealander has been reconsidering what the next five years looks like. Is my house worth what it was? Will I still have a job in six months? What just happened to my KiwiSaver and should I do anything about it? How is grandpa faring on his own? Will my business survive? What happens if I get the virus? Will my housebound neighbour please stop using the bandsaw?

And most of all, he ponders - does anyone really know how to get out of this?

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website

Check our graphic for the latest case numbers in New Zealand and around the world.