Katikati residents are worried about how easy it is to cross COVID-19 alert level boundaries as Delta finds its way into the Bay of Plenty.
The confirmed case in the Bay of Plenty town is a person who had permission to move house from Auckland.
This has residents worried that the virus might've spread further than just the one positive case currently announced.
"My wife was in a shop working, when the symptomatic guy came in," a Katikati resident tells Newshub.
Another resident said: "I'm a bit worried it's entered the bubble of safety."
Delta's tentacles reached the Bay of Plenty town when a person with permission to move house arrived from Pukekohe.
"It's just part of the moving process, shifting stuff down here every time they came through the border they got a test, so stuff they were allowed to do," Western Bay of Plenty Mayor Garry Webber tells Newshub.
While locals aren't entirely shocked, it's sparked a flurry of testing in the region and an even bigger queue to get vaccinated.
But there is no animosity for their positive new community member, who is described as a "model citizen".
"This person is almost a model citizen, they follow all the rules, they're vaccinated, they've done all the tests, they're great users of the COVID Tracer app," Webbers says.
"They've had a little bit of a hiccup so went and had another test. If the rest of New Zealand had done this we wouldn't be where we are today."
Locations of interest include the Waipuna hospice store, an op shop, the booze outlet, an antique shop and Hammer Hardware.
But it's the lack of spot checks by police between level 3 and level 2 boundaries that's of real interest here.
One local says "there are too many ways to get through" the alert level boundaries.
And if COVID infiltrates more areas of the North Island it could be disastrous and something that really worries National MP Simon Bridges.
"I've got a real concern about ICU beds in the Western Bay of Plenty," Bridges tells Newshub. "In Tauranga hospital there is just 10, that's low in normal times."
And in regions like this, it's fast becoming anything but normal.
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