‘The right thing to do’: shop owner
A Wellington chippy has closed its doors temporary, with its owners isolating themselves till Monday after a recent holiday to China.
Regulars at Thorndon’s Starfish Fish and Chips To Go were greeted with a sign telling them that the shop would remain closed after a holiday break by the owners to ‘‘keep everyone safe from exposing to this potential risk’’ from the novel coronavirus.
Shu Lu, who owns the shop with her husband Alex Feng, told Stuff she and her husband had returned home from a fiveweek holiday in China last Friday.
Lu said she had not visited Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, but had passed through Guangzhou airport on the way home, a city which now has 354 confirmed cases.
She said Ministry of Health guidance was unclear for people returning from China who had not visited Wuhan, so they had decided to take a precautionary approach. Neither she nor her husband felt unwell.
‘‘There is no clear guidance for people coming back from China, so we are just doing what we think is the right thing to do,’’ she said. ‘‘We don’t want to be those people.’’
Lu said she had left her 4-year-old son in
China with grandparents amid concerns about having him travel on an international flight but was now worried for him as the outbreak worsened.
‘‘I can’t do anything about [that situation] now. I can just pray for him and hope the family is safe,’’ Lu added.
In the meantime, she and her husband were hanging out at home until they reopened the shop on Monday.
‘‘We have a dog, so we chase the dog around for exercise.’’