Dannevirke Covid cases may have been exposed at Wellington protest

Covid testing site - Cases almost doubled over night in MidCentral. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

The source of some of the current Covid cases in the Tararua may have come from the protest in Wellington.

The Hawke's Bay Today understands that some residents had travelled down to Wellington for the protest at Parliament and had since tested positive for Covid.

The protest was announced late last week as a location of interest with the exposure event being last Saturday and Sunday .

One local business owner had also been spotted at the protest.

With the country now in Omicron phase 3, the focus of case investigations is now on household contacts and high-risk exposures.

As of 1pm Friday, there were 112 confirmed new cases from PCR tests in the MidCentral District Health Board region and 41 from RATs (rapid antigen tests).

The total was almost double of those recorded on Thursday.

While the information on how many cases were in the Tararua was not available at that time, it was believed to still be very small.

However, the spike in cases nationwide and the lack of up-to-date information for Tararua was increasing anxiety.

Dannevirke South School has been confirmed as currently being supported by the Ministry of Education with two confirmed cases.

In a post on the school website, the principal stated that the two students were from separate classrooms and were not related.

Mayor Tracey Collis said she knew people from the district had been at the protest.

"Everybody knew that it had the potential to be a super-spreader."