Queenstown council houses sick woman

The Queenstown Lakes District Council has helped find three houses where a Danish woman with coronavirus and her fellow travellers can self-isolate.

Queenstown Lakes mayor Jim Boult said nine people, including the woman and the other members of the film crew she was travelling with, are now in three homes in the town.

Some of the group had been exposed to coronavirus and the others were in voluntary isolation in case they been exposed.

The woman, in her 30s, was hospitalised for one night in Queenstown after becoming unwell and testing positive for Covid-19. She was the eighth case to be confirmed in New Zealand.

Authorities are staying tightlipped about her movements before her diagnosis, with one Queenstown restaurateur questioning whether the places she dined at had even been told.

Hospitality New Zealand Central Otago president Chris Buckley

said there were concerns that no-one had been in touch with industry representatives.

‘‘We only see what comes out in the news. This is the worrying thing about it.’’

Boult said he had no knowledge of the restaurants or attractions the woman visited before she was isolated.

He would not back a call by Wellington mayor Andy Foster for the Ministry of Health to reveal more details of the movements of those with coronavirus.

‘‘That matter is entirely in the hands of the [Southern District Health Board] and Ministry of Health.’’

Boult said he was disappointed a television news crew had revealed the original site where the woman was staying in her campervan.

She had since been moved to a house organised by the council.

‘‘The poor woman is sick. She needs a reasonable place to go to.’’

Several people had come to the council offering the use of houses for people in isolation, he said.