The owner of Auckland bar HeadQuarters is laying into the Ministry of Health, accusing them of "trying to contaminate the great HQ" after it was revealed as a location of interest.
On Sunday night the Ministry of Health (MoH) updated its locations of interest page to show the popular Viaduct spot had been visited by a case on Saturday, August 14 between 11:30pm-1:30am.
It led to an angry outburst on the Headquarters Facebook page, which appears to have been written by owner Leo Molloy.
Molloy told Newshub while he's been totally supportive and compliant, his frustration has been how the situation has been handled.
Molloy pointed out the visit was 15 days ago, and said no staff or customers have had signs of being infected with the virus.
"The muppets rang us on the Tuesday the 24th and said they'd been trying to email us but they didn't have 'NZ' on the end of the email address!!" the post reads.
"I did advise them that this date was, even at that stage, two incubation cycles ago.
"Now here we go... it's only 15 days old and the village idiots are advising you get tested on day 5 & 12 after the last exposure.
"I hope you all got tested on the 19th and 26th…..even though you had no idea we were a location of interest."
Molloy has been an outspoken critic of Jacinda Ardern in the past, previously accusing the Prime Minister of "lies and half-truths" and "orchestrated hysteria that's attributed to this disastrous collapse of the economy".
Last month, the Auckland businessman said he plans to run for the city's mayoralty in the next election.
His most recent posts on his personal page take aim at the "cluster fxxx" of vaccine supply and question the Government's lockdown strategy - adding that New Zealand's being "held hostage".
The HeadQuarters Facebook post continues to disparage the Government's handling of the pandemic.
"Have I not been telling you this is a shambles?, that these muppets have no idea what they're doing," it states.
"This is a circus, being run by clowns."
Ministry of Health responds
A location of interest remains active for a period of 18 days after a person with COVID-19 was there to increase our chances of finding any other possible cases which may have resulted.
This means that the bar will continue to be an active location of interest until 1 September.
Our advice would be that anyone who was at Headquarters who hasn't already been tested should self-isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.
The location of interest advice for Headquarters listed on our website to get tested on day 5 and 12 is advice that is no longer relevant given the time that has passed and has been amended.
The Ministry acknowledges the feedback provided by Headquarters in drawing our attention to this.
