One of the county's biggest music festivals says it is prepared if it has to lock down if some of its 14,000 revellers get Covid-19.
Fireworks display to welcome in 2016 at Rhythm and Vines, in Gisborne. Photo: Jared Donkin
The government has unveiled its plan for a possible resurgence of Covid-19 in the summer break, using an outbreak at a music festival or a campground as one scenario.
In that example, all the campers would have to stay longer, and in their bubbles, until health officials could assess the situation and get contact tracing going.
A large proportion of those at Rhythm and Vines camp on site and director Hamish Pinkham said the festival was prepared if it had to host for a few extra days.
"We've got flushing toilets, we've got warm showers, we've got Portaloos, enough food and beverage to get us through the week. You know, it wouldn't be the worst place to be if the country was locked down," he said.
Minister for Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins said the reaction to every situation would be different but in the example given yesterday, health officials would likely need everyone to stay on site for a day or two while they got testing and contact tracing going.
Hotwater Beach Top 10 Holiday Park owner Sheree Webster said they would be able to cope, especially after hosting nearly 80 international tourists for the whole of the alert level 4 lockdown.
There was plenty of ability for people to socially distance while staying in their bubbles, she said.
But it was likely the camp would want help and advice from the police and health authorities.
Holiday Parks Association chief executive Fergus Brown said the announcement was the first he had heard about possible camp site lockdowns.
The association's members were mostly happy with the government's response but wanted to find out more about what to do in that scenario, he said.
Epidemiologist Nick Wilson said the virus was less likely to spread at outdoor festivals than indoor events but there were risks - including a difficulty tracing close contacts and people taking the virus to different parts of the country.
That was the worst case scenario example presented by the government - an infected festival goer, with no known links to the border, taking the virus home with them.
It could send New Zealanders back to their bubbles with a rise in alert levels.
The government had missed a chance to finesse the alert levels so any change was more targeted than the current blunt instruments which caused cause so much disruption, Wilson said.
It also needed to put more focus on stopping the virus getting through the border, which still had critical holes, he said.
And the Bluetooth feature on the Covid Tracer app which allows contact tracing between passing strangers should be promoted more because that could make all the difference at a big event, he said.
Holidaymakers 'need contingency plans'
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told Morning Report people need to have some contingency plans in place in case they are delayed getting home from holiday or a festival.
"If we found we have a positive case in a camping ground we may ask everybody in that camping ground to remain in place while we did some testing and contact tracing so that might delay their departure."
"If it was a bigger event like a festival that might have bigger implications for the rest of the country because we know from these festivals that people potentially travel all over the country within a fairly short space of time.
"Regional public health would be [at a campground] fairly quickly, they would be working with the campground to identify who should be heading home straight away, who might need to stay, those sorts of things."
Hipkins said the small number of people who go on holiday in remote areas were unlikely to be involved directly in an outbreak, and would be told on their return about any major Covid alert level change.
