Stratford District Mayor Neil Volzke has urged locals to “get out and get tested” following the discovery of six new Covid-19 cases in the Taranaki town on Thursday night.
Of those six, one person was admitted to Taranaki Base Hospital.
Volzke told Breakfast that while it is “certainly not the news we were hoping for”, wastewater test results in the past week mean the emergence of the cases “won’t come as a shock to many in the community”.
While the positive cases are a cause for concern, it has also come as a relief, he said.
“We’ve now located the source and we can start working our way through contact tracing and ensuring that people get tested when they need it.”
Volzke said the six cases belong to a single household and are “linked back to a source that has come from Auckland”.
He said it’s understood the group has been self-isolating and were largely staying within their household “so all being well, there may not be too much contact outside of the group”.
Volzke urged locals to get tested to ensure there is no further community transmission in the region.
“People need to get out and get tested if they’re feeling unwell or have flu-like symptoms and that way, we can get on top of this really quick and make an attempt to contain it.”
A preliminary list of locations of interest from the group is expected later on Friday, but “if the family has largely been staying at home, there may not be any”, he said.
People can get tested at one of three testing stations - the Stratford pop-up clinic, Taranaki Base Hospital and Hāwera Hospital - as well as local medical centres.
“There’s plenty of opportunity for people to get tested if they are unwell.”
He said while a potential change in alert levels “could be on the agenda", for the moment, there hasn’t been any discussion”.
Volzke said while the cases came as a surprise, "the message is stay calm, just do what you need to do around social distancing - wearing your mask, those kinds of things - and if you’re feeling unwell, go and get tested".
“Most importantly, if you haven’t been vaxxed, please go and get vaxxed.”
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