The Ministry of Health has listed three Auckland hospitality venues as ‘locations of interest’ after customers tested positive for Covid-19.
Three Auckland eateries have been linked to recent Covid-19 cases, with at least one closing for deep cleaning after being informed a customer had tested positive.
The Ministry of Health website today updated its “locations of interest” section to include Crave Cafe in Morningside, Bricklane Restaurant & Bar in New Lynn and Kreem Bake Cook in Henderson, after each was visited last week by someone who went on to test positive for Covid-19.
All three are listed as “locations of interest for people who may be ‘casual contacts’ of Covid-19 cases in the community”. The Ministry of Health stresses that risk from these locations is “most often very low”, but “casual contacts are asked to monitor their health and get medical advice from their GP or Healthline if they become unwell”.
Anyone who was at one of the venues during the time-frames cited is “not required to start self-isolating unless you feel unwell or start to develop Covid-19 symptoms”.
Bricklane, which was visited between 12pm and 1.30pm on Wednesday September 2, posted an update to its Facebook page this afternoon, in which CEO Allan Pollard said his business was informed this morning that a customer had tested positive.
“As a precautionary measure, we closed the restaurant at lunch today for a deep clean and had a professional contractor complete an antibacterial fogging of the entire premises.” The post said the restaurant was reopening at 4pm today.
Crave Cafe was visited between 9.30am and 3pm on Friday. The cafe is popular for remote working and has meeting rooms for hire. On Monday last week, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and Auckland mayor, Phil Goff, held an official meeting there.
The Spinoff understands that the person who tested positive was a customer and as other people who were in the cafe at the time are considered only casual contacts, no follow-up action was needed, but that staff should be “extra aware” of their own health. The cafe remained open today.
Kreem came into contact with a person who later tested positive between 9.30am and 1pm on Thursday, September 3. The Spinoff has attempted to contact Kreem.
The other listed “locations of interest” from the last 10 days are St Dominic’s Girl’s Catholic College in Henderson, the Northern Express bus on September 3 and 4, and Lynmall Countdown in New Lynn on September 4.
The Ministry of Health announced six new cases of Covid-19 today, all linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship sub-cluster. Four of those were involved in a series of “bereavement activities”, including a funeral and a visit to the home of the bereaved, last week. Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield today confirmed a member of the Mt Roskill group was one of those who visited the home, having been tested for Covid-19 but before receiving their result, which turned out to be positive.
Bloomfield today said the new sub-cluster left him on “orange level” concern over the outbreak.
Yesterday, four cases linked to the Mt Roskill sub-cluster were announced, and today, Bloomfield confirmed one was a student at St Dominic’s Catholic College in Henderson, one was a bus driver on the Northern Express route, and one worked at public health service Hāpai te Hauora in Henderson.