A confused Tuakau business owner is having to move to takeaways only, after this morning opening in what he thought was Covid-19 Alert Level 2.
There's confusion in the Waikato town as to if they're lumped with Auckland in Alert Level 3 after news of three new community cases of the virus in the super-city yesterday. During Auckland's last lockdown, they joined the rest of the country in Level 2.
Johnny Shin told 1 NEWS he opened this morning thinking they were under Level 2, only to be told by someone on the local board they were in fact at Level 3.
“Waikato District website said Level 2, and here is Waikato District but they included only Tuakau and Pokeno, so yeah, we were told we were Level 2,” he said.
He’s now preparing to move his business to click and collect.
However, Shin is not the only one scratching his head as to why they're now being told they're in Level 3.
Another local told 1 NEWS "nobody knows" what level they're meant to be in.
"The lack of communication is bloody horrible," he said.
“I haven’t had any notification. Nobody in this town has ever had the bloody Covid because we’ve always been separate of Auckland.
“We’ve had very few restrictions here and I don’t see why they have to go further south. It’s shocking because I want to go south, I want to go to Raglan.”
The man said if he’s blocked at one end by police checkpoints, he’ll try another direction “right through the backcountry”.
However, another local said the new borders make better sense.
Donning a mask and scanning in at a store this morning, the man told 1 NEWS the border system was confusing last time Auckland went into a regional lockdown so this time round makes more sense to include them.
But he added that there should have been better communication from officials last night so locals knew what level they were in.
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