The principal of the Auckland secondary girls school involved in one of New Zealand’s largest Covid-19 clusters has admitted she was “scared” when she found out she had contracted the virus.
Raechelle Taulu is one of the 92 cases affiliated with Marist College’s Covid-19 outbreak which became one of New Zealand's largest cluster cases.
This morning speaking to Newshub Nation, Ms Taulu opened up about her life in the last four weeks, which included her testing positive for the coronavirus.
"I think when I found out I was sick, it was on the Wednesday after the school had closed, and like everybody that finds out, I'll be really honest - I was scared," she said.
"I was scared for the wellbeing of my family, I was worried about how sick they might get as a result of me having it. I was scared of how sick I was going to get and I was scared that I may have passed it on to colleagues at work and not known about it.
"What I do know is I probably felt the same way as all of our families felt when they found out. It's the fear of the unknown."
Ms Taulu has since recovered from the virus – one of 79 cases in the 92-strong cluster to have done so thus far – but says Marist College is uncertain as to how Covid-19 got into the school.
"The reality is, we had our first teacher test positive on March 22 but we don't know if she was actually the first person in our school to get Covid-19.
"So when she came through as positive we instantly worked with the board, the senior leadership team, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education to ensure that we closed down the school.
"Two days later, we received an additional case and that's when we worked with the Ministry of Education to ensure that every student in our school was classified as close contact because it was important that we didn't miss anyone."
While the Marist College cluster was high in public interest early on, Ms Taulu said a large amount of support for both students and staff has been received behind the scenes.
"I think it's difficult because we've involved children and these are our young and most impressionable, and it's our duty to look after them," she said. "I take my hats off to our young women. They are strong and they are resilient."
Ms Taulu said her focus is now on reopening the school slowly with the Government providing them as much advice as any other school as the country prepares to potentially transition to alert Level 3 next week.
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