I thought you might all be interested in this spin from the (ARPHS) Auckland Regional Public Health Service.
The bus trip where two people were likely to have contracted COVID-19 was reported on Monday in the NZ Herald
“The trip in question: the 22N Service from Symonds St Overbridge (Stop 7162) to New North Rd (8200). The date: Wednesday August 12, the day Auckland moved into alert level 3. The time: between 10.30am and 1.04pm.
According to Auckland Regional Public Health, the trip took two and a half hours. The reason for this was because “there was very bad traffic congestion that morning as people were heading home before the midday lockdown,” the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) said.
They said the two people sat on the bus for an hour at Symonds St.
According to Auckland Transport’s website, the trip from Stop 7162 to Stop 8200 can be walked in 11 minutes. By bus, albeit with no traffic, it takes 3 minutes.
On Google Maps, from one stop to the other, it is 750 metres.”
I was in the area on that day, cycling (don’t judge me!) to work to pick up some things and then heading home again. There was only one place that traffic was jammed and it was in that area. Trying to blame it on people heading home before the lockdown is disingenuous (to be kind).
That day the COVID-19 testing station was at 112 New North Road (the next day it was moved to Eden Park because of the chaos it caused) :
This is the bus trip:
It wasn’t people heading home from work at 10 am to beat the lockdown, it was the poorly planned testing set up just along the road. It caused so much chaos that they were warning people without health issues to stay away from the area.
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