AT LEAST one person waited five hours to be tested for COVID-19 at Wyong Leagues Club and traffic was banked up for "several kilometres" either side of another after a long list of exposure sites put residents of the Central Coast on alert on Monday.
So far, five people from a Budgewoi household have now tested positive for COVID-19, but the number of exposure sites visited by another household contact has driven the surge in demand for testing.
They were the household contacts of a previously announced case - a tradie who had been working on a building site in Sydney where an infectious person worked.
Lake Macquarie MP, Greg Piper, said via his Facebook page that the movement of one household member had led to a large number of exposure sites at Westfield Tuggerah, Lakehaven, San Remo and Budgewoi.
"Five members of the same household have tested positive for COVID-19 but two other people have been identified as also living there," his post says.
"Those two have currently tested negative but one of those people, who should have been isolating, has made 25 different shop visits in five days. I simply cannot describe that situation, but let's settle on mind blowing and disappointing."
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Somewhat unusually, the household - which includes the five confirmed cases and two other people who had so far tested negative to the virus - have been moved to the Special Health Accommodation in Sydney to isolate.
Central Coast Health did not respond to the Newcastle Herald's requests for further clarity and information.
Exposure sites from July 21 to 25 included H&R Block Toukley, the supermarkets at four shopping centres in San Remo, Tuggerah, Lake Haven and Northlakes, two pharmacies, a Dan Murphys, a Smokemart, a Coles Liquor and Bunnings at Charmhaven. The long list left many Central Coast residents, already part of the Greater Sydney lockdown, scrambling to get tested for COVID-19.
Huge queues for testing clinics caused significant traffic delays at Doyalson on the Pacific Highway on Monday. There was also big demand for the testing clinic at Morisset Showground, where traffic was backed up to the M1 interchange.
On Monday, NSW recorded 145 new cases of COVID-19, with 51 infectious in the community. A woman in her 80s and a man in his 80s have died. They are the ninth and 10th COVID-19 related deaths of this outbreak.
