Man with coronavirus went to packed rock concert at New Zealand arena

Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by YanksSensBills
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Officials say the man attended a Tool gig in Auckland days after returning from northern Italy with his partner, who is also infected

Man with coronavirus went to packed rock concert at New Zealand arena

A man in New Zealand confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus was revealed on Friday to have attended a rock concert packed with thousands of other people.

Health authorities said the man in his 30s, who is the partner of a woman who was confirmed to have Covid-19 this week, attended the Tool concert at Spark Arena in Auckland on 28 February.

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The band played two concerts to capacity crowds in New Zealand’s largest city last week.

“He was in the general admission standing area in the front left-hand quadrant,” Dr Ashley Bloomfield, ministry of health director-general of health, said at a news conference. “We encourage people who were in the general admission standing area to be aware of symptoms of Covid-19.”

Bloomfield said the risk was low for all others who attended the concert. The man has been isolated at home since Wednesday.

The man and his partner had recently arrived back in the country from northern Italy.

New Zealand so far has four confirmed cases of the virus, a much smaller number than Australia, where 60 cases have been recorded and two elderly people have died of complications from the virus.

New Zealand has extended its travel restrictions for people arriving from China and Iran in an effort to contain the outbreak of the virus.

My_usrname_of_choice on March 6th, 2020 at 15:00 UTC »

New Zealander here. There's a lot of key points that people are either willfully ignoring or just haven't noticed yet.

Yes they came back from northern Italy, but at the time they came back there were significantly fewer cases than now, and it wasn't considered that bad. It hadn't yet been added to the list of category 1 countries. The wife, who was confirmed as a case before he was, was cleared of the disease by a doctor at the time. Like, what the fuck else do you want her to do? That's why the wife traveled domestically. She did everything expected of her and either the medical professional failed her, or the test was negative. He went to the concert before his wife was a confirmed case.

So put your pitchforks away. Neither he nor his wife did anything malicious or negligent. This disease will spread with or without both of them, they are just highlighted as examples of ways that it spreads.

seaman_showers on March 6th, 2020 at 09:07 UTC »

They opened the Syd and Qld concerts with Fear Inoculum, kinda fitting.

DueError5 on March 6th, 2020 at 05:59 UTC »

“He was in the general admission standing area in the front left-hand quadrant,” Dr Ashley Bloomfield, ministry of health director-general of health, said at a news conference. “We encourage people who were in the general admission standing area to be aware of symptoms of Covid-19.”