The MP for Taupō and business leaders are calling on locals to lift their vaccination efforts now that four cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the town.
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The Ministry of Health confirmed one Covid-19 case in Taupō yesterday morning and another three cases in the town were confirmed last night.
A close contact of the first case, travelled to Wairarapa last week before developing symptoms on Monday.
Two of the cases are household contacts of the first case, while the third is a close contact. Health authorities have yet to establish how the first person became infected.
New locations of interest in Taupō, Masterton and Greytown are on the Ministry of Health's website.
Just 72 percent of eligible people in the Lakes District Health Board area are fully vaccinated; one of the lowest rates in the country.
National MP Louise Upston said it was inevitable that Covid-19 would spread south, and she hopes locals now recognise the urgency to get vaccinated.
She said the region's low vaccination rate was a worry.
"It is low but I think also what we've seen in other parts of the country when there has been a positive Covid result, it has seen a greater sense of urgency."
Upston said there is plenty of capacity at vaccination clinics in the region.
Today Lakes DHB testing will be available at:
- Community Testing Centre, 79 Miro Street, Taupō - open between 9am and 3pm Sunday
- Taupō Events Centre, AC Baths Avenue - open between 8.30 and 3pm Sunday
- Pihanga Health, Tūrangi - open between 11am and 1pm Sunday
More than four times as many people as usual got tested for Covid-19 in Taupō yesterday after the first confirmation of a positive case in the town.
The Taupō Business Chamber said vaccination is the key to safeguarding people's jobs as well as their health.
Its president Rory Scott also said it was inevitable that Covid would spread south.
He said Taupō's tourism and hospitality sector has been hit hard by the lengthy Auckland lockdown which has hurt the tourist town.
"Our tourism sector has been critically hit because effectively tourism stopped, and so far as our hospitality sector, any time Auckland can't travel is a massive blow to their financial viability. We rely heavily on that foot traffic and to not have it is a blow to our economy."
Scott said he hopes for the sake of their livelihoods - and the health of themselves and their families - more people will get vaccinated.