A Covid-infected teenager skipped home quarantine in Tasmania to ride his scooter around a local supermarket and had two visitors to his house while in isolation.
The quarantine breach has thrown Tasmania on high alert after the state has been largely Covid-free throughout the last two years.
Acting Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the IGA supermarket in Newnham, Launceston was now an exposure site after the 15-year-old visited with his cousin on Saturday.
The teenager left quarantine while infected with Covid and visited a local supermarket in Launceston (pictured) while about half a dozen other people were in the store
The teen visited the store between 2.20pm and 2.45pm and was not wearing a mask with the shopkeeper now in isolation as a close contact.
'This is a very limited exposure timeframe; however, out of an abundance of caution, we are declaring the IGA as an exposure site,' Mr Rockliff said.
Another two contact who visited the boy at his home on Friday night are also in quarantine.
The IGA manager Harry Jones said he was furious the 15-year-old was able to leave his house and visit his store while infected with Covid.
'We're pretty pissed that he didn't do the right thing and a bit concerned that he was with a few other people and could have infected them,' Mr Jones told The Mercury.
He said the teenager was riding his scooter around the store while his cousin bought a pack of cigarettes and 'had his hands on the handlebars the whole time'.
The store has now been deep cleaned and anyone who visited on Saturday afternoon has been contacted via SMS to get a Covid test.
About half a dozen people are understood to have been in the store while the boy was there.
'This could be a problem for not just for our area, but the whole of state,' one local told the newspaper.
The boy had flown in
