A summer's day at the polo is now the scene of a suspected Omicron scare.
Multiple COVID cases went to Polo in the Bay in Mount Maunganui on Saturday, where hundreds were in attendance.
"Luckily it was outdoors so hopefully that risk has gone down a little bit," Auckland University aerosol chemist Joel Rindelaub says.
However, it's an indoor wedding causing fresh concern tonight.
Six hundred guests attended the ceremony at the Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Auckland’s Eden Terrace on the weekend.
The city's Indian Association, which hires out the venue, confirming they were exposed to the new variant.
"We definitely are worried about the spread of Omicron through the event," Auckland Indian Association President Dhansukh Lal said.
More and more cases are being linked to big events.
"I actually only got my call today this morning," Student Brooke Cooper said.
Year 13 student Brooke Cooper spent the weekend at the Soundsplash festival with a group of mates.
At least 15 are now isolating at home with COVID, that is up from 11 last night.
Some of them have been told they have Omicron.
"I was kind of expecting it because everyone who has already gotten a positive test I have been extremely close with," Cooper said.
Including her friend Anna Tucker who says there's another 15 to 20 people in the group still waiting on their test results.
"The fact that we all have it, it must have been one person that got it from someone that spread it in the group got it from someone," Tucker says.
Despite reports of more than a dozen cases linked to the festival, the Ministry of Health only announced a further one today, a person in Hawke's Bay.
Experts expect the numbers will keep climbing.
"Any time where you're bringing a lot of people together like with mosh pits or with shoulder to shoulder at these venues there's not going to be a lot of great ventilation," Dr Rindelaub says.
Fears of a super spreader event have led to many schools asking teenagers to stay home and some are taking it upon themselves to go and get swabbed as a precaution.
"I've got school coming back next week and for myself and my peers I'd rather make sure that I definitely have no symptoms, have no COVID," year 13 student Mia Wylie says.
Because there's no doubt the Omicron wave is coming.
