Patrick Gower has gone into self-isolation after he visited the same Auckland supermarket as the COVID-19 managed isolation escapee.
The advice given to Gower is he is extremely low-risk and was not a close contact of the infected person, but to undergo a test as a precautionary measure.
Gower visited Countdown Victoria St on Wednesday morning before the supermarket shut to the public for a deep clean.
The escapee visited on Tuesday evening after he broke isolation protocol by leaving Auckland's Stamford Plaza to visit the supermarket in the CBD. He returned a positive COVID-19 test on Wednesday morning.
Gower says the supermarket was "strangely empty" and was virtually deserted as he shopped.
"Then one of the workers comes up and says 'Excuse me sir, can you please go through and pay, we've got to close the store'. I said 'why', he said there's some sort of technical problem, and I go through the self-checkout and pay for my stuff," he says.
"I get on with my day, then of course at 1pm, bang, the news comes out that someone with COVID-19 had been wandering through there and gone through the very same checkout I'd just gone through."
At that point, he says he rang Healthline who advised he get a COVID-19 test and go into self-isolation until the result comes back, which is what he's doing.
He says his big question is how the offender was allowed to leave and visit the supermarket. But his other question is why the supermarket was allowed to reopen on Wednesday morning and "hundreds of people" were allowed to shop before it was closed.
"All I wanted to get was some toothpaste and some kombucha, and now we get a COVID-19 test."
