Covid 19 coronavirus: Coromandel mayor lax on scanning despite Covid-19 community scare

August 17 2021. Auckland and Coromandel will go into level 4 lockdown for seven days – and the rest of the country for three days – following news of a community Covid-19 case in NZ's biggest city. Video / NZ Herald / Getty

By RNZ

A Thames-Coromandel civic leader says news of a Covid-19 community case and snap lockdown are shocking, but will probably not make her scan the tracing Covid-19 QR codes more often.

Thames-Coromandel District Mayor Sandra Goudie told Checkpoint she would not normally scan in when visiting locations.

She added the Covid-19 community case will "probably not" push her to scan more either. "It's very hit and miss for me," she said.

"I'm quite a believer in my credit card tracking everywhere I've been.

"It's not a habit I've got into."

New Zealand's latest alert level 4 national lockdown comes after a new Covid-19 case was found in Auckland's North Shore on Tuesday afternoon, without a link between the case and the border or managed isolation.

Thirteen of the first locations of interest are in Coromandel township, where the 58-year-old man and his wife visited on the weekend.

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Goudie said visitors to Coromandel were more conscientious than locals about scanning where they went.

"When you're shopping as a local, you can often tell through your credit card purchases or your eftpos purchases where you've been."

She was "in the middle of nowhere" near Port Jackson on Tuesday evening when she heard the news.

"I only heard it by chance because we turned on the radio."

She said no officials would have been able to contact her as she was out of "off-grid".

Driving Creek Railway Tours Coromandel is one of the locations of interest. The man visited there on the morning of August 14 while positive with the virus. Goudie said it was a "hugely popular" place.

She also said Umu Café, where the man visited twice – on the evenings of August 13 and August 14 – was one of the most popular places in the town.

Goudie said she did not know how many people would have to isolate after being in contact with the positive Covid-19 case.

"There would certainly be a reasonable number. Coromandel town is always reasonably busy on the weekend. It would have been busy with the rugby as well."

Being part of the seven-day lockdown would not be good, she said.

"We're not happy about it. Who is? No one's going to be going to be particularly happy about a lockdown. But here's the thing, in any emergency it's the same scenario, you've just got to hunker down and do what you need to do to get through it. And we're good at that on the Coromandel."