Auckland man isolating in backyard tent gets hotel room
An Auckland man self-isolating in a backyard tent and using a bucket as an outhouse is thrilled to have been moved to a hotel to complete his Covid isolation.
Ratana Clarke, 42, had been eating, sleeping and going to the toilet in his New Lynn boarding house’s backyard ever since eight guests tested positive for Covid on Sunday.
Typically, Clarke shares cooking and bathroom facilities with the guests of the privately owned boarding house next to which he has pitched a tent for over a year.
But after all indoor guests tested positive on Sunday night and were told to self-isolate at the property, Clarke became too scared to go inside the house for fear of catching Covid.
Unwilling to go inside — having so far tested negative to Covid-19 on Monday — and unable to leave the
property after being deemed a close contact by the Ministry of Health, he had spent four days in the backyard ordering UberEats.
Yesterday, however, he moved
into a managed isolation facility.
“I’m at the Holiday Inn MIQ, thank you so much for your help,” he texted the Herald.
He shifted to Auckland before last year’s national lockdown to look after his elderly mum, who had diabetes. After Covid settled down, he moved to New Lynn and the tent at the boarding house, paying $100 a week.
“The way I saw it I had a roof over my head — might not be much but there were people worse off than me.”
However, once the boarding house guests tested positive, Clarke told the Herald he became frustrated and was feeling a little undignified.
He said he got tested for Covid on Monday and received a negative result. However, as he is considered a close contact he couldn’t leave the property for 14 days. “I’m very worried about getting Covid and the longer I’m stuck in this position the higher the chance of contracting the virus,” he said at the time.
The Northern Region Health Coordination Centre — Covid-19 Response had told the Herald it planned to give Clarke a place in MIQ for the rest of his isolation period, but couldn’t confirm when it would start.
Clarke had said he was frustrated by the delays because he contacted Auckland Regional Public Health Service five times and only on Wednesday afternoon got a call to say “they are looking into it”.
“I’ve asked them to remove me from here because everybody has tested positive,” he said.
“When I rang the first four times they put me through to their answering service and they took my name, date of birth and what you want to talk to them about, and they say they will ring you back.”
The house is about 45m from the road and trees shield it on both sides.
The recent rise in people contracting Covid needing to isolate, plus demand from tens of thousands of Kiwis trying to return home and also needing to isolate, has led to a shortage of available hotel rooms.