Covid 19 coronavirus: ‘I want to look back on that day, not everything after it’: a couple at the center of the Bluff cluster share their story

The newlyweds at the center of a Covid-19 cluster that became one of the largest in New Zealand had just begun their married life when they discovered that one of their guests had tested positive for the virus.

Betty and Manoli Tzanoudakis tied the knot at Bluff’s Oyster Cove restaurant and bar on March 21, before meetings were limited.

Ultimately, ninety-eight Covid-19 cases were linked to her wedding.

Four days after they were married, New Zealand was blockaded.

On March 26, one of the 70 guests who attended the Tzanoudakis’ wedding called to say that he had tested positive for Covid-19.

An Air New Zealand flight attendant told the wedding guests that she had returned to New Zealand from a working flight from the United States a few days earlier, according to a Herald source who declined to be named.

The Health Ministry told the Herald that a foreign travel liaison had been established with only one person who attended the wedding.

By the end of the week, both the bride and groom had tested positive for the coronavirus, Newshub’s Patrick Gower was told in his documentary On Lockdown.

“It just felt like a normal flu,” said Betty.

But for her husband, it wasn’t.

“It was worse than anything I’ve ever had in my life,” he said.

Less than a week after their wedding, Manoli’s father, Chrisanthos (Christo) Tzanoudakis fell ill with the virus.

A widower and father of two originally from Crete, he had lived in Wellington for 50 years.

The 87-year-old man was admitted to Wellington Hospital two days after showing symptoms of Covid-19.

Manoli, who told Newshub that her father was her “best friend,” said she saw her sick father in the hospital, pulling the oxygen tubes out of his nose because he was in so much pain.

“Stay strong and we’ll get through it,” Manoli told him in Greek.

Those were the last words he said to his father, he told Newshub.

Christo Tzanoudakis, who planned to return to Greece after attending his son’s wedding, died in hospital on April 10.

It was one of 22 New Zealand deaths related to the virus.

The Tzanoudakis said they did not blame their wedding guest, who later said he was not unwell during the reception, for what happened.

“I don’t blame anyone,” said Manoli, who instead “blamed the virus” for what became, until recently, New Zealand’s largest Covid-19 cluster.

“I want to remember that day, not everything that followed,” Betty said.

An Air New Zealand spokesperson said the cabin crew member did not become ill until he got home after the wedding.

The aircrew was, at the time of the wedding, exempt from self-isolation after returning from work abroad, provided they complied with the strict guidelines of the Ministry of Health regarding hygiene and the use of personal protective equipment ( EPP), the spokesperson said. .

The crew member later released a statement via Air New Zealand, saying he was believed to be asymptomatic and potentially carrying the virus during the wedding.

“The Air New Zealand employee, like all operational cabin crew, adhered to the Ministry of Health guidance which includes hygiene measures and PPE,” the statement said.

“Our colleague is deeply upset by what happened and the implication in the comments published in the media that he did something wrong.”