When Swallowed Anchor owner Ryan Wilson got a call from NSW Health contact tracers on New Year's Eve, his mind began racing through all the places he'd been in the past couple of weeks.
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"I was just thinking about where we'd been on the weekend and where we might have been exposed to COVID, but then they mentioned the Swallowed Anchor," he said.
He said he and his wife Annah, who also runs the restaurant, could never have imagined the call would be about their own venue.
The Crown Street tapas bar has been thrust into the spotlight in the past 24 hours, named as the possible missing link between the COVID-19 cases in Wollongong and Croydon and the northern beaches cluster.
"It's just so disappointing because we've been so vigilant," Mr Wilson said.
The Wilsons have received nothing but praise from NSW Health for how they've handled the news that The Swallowed Anchor may have unwittingly become the site of transmission between the Avalon cluster and cases elsewhere in NSW.
Authorities believe it is possible that an as yet unidentified person, who is linked to the northern beaches in some way, may have been at the Swallowed Anchor on December 19 - as one of the Wollongong cases and a person from the Croydon cluster were both at the venue on that day.
We'd just rather not be involved. But it's good to know that we've been so stringent - we knew we didn't need to scramble for anything.
While the husband and wife team - who have already been put through the wringer by COVID-19 in 2020 - wish they were not involved at all in the latest situation, they are grateful they have been closely following all public health advice.
"We got the call at 7.03pm and by 8.13pm we'd already been tested, got the keys and been to the restaurant to get all the information and record keeping we needed," Mr Wilson said.
"We'd just rather not be involved. But it's good to know that we've been so stringent - we knew we didn't need to scramble for anything.
"We use the NSW [QR Code] App, and we also have our own second one - so they already had some of our information and we could fill in the gaps of anything else they needed.
"I think by about 10pm, most people who needed to be notified had been called."
The Wilsons said they would strongly advise all other hospitality venues to closely follow the health guidelines, and thanked the Wollongong community for the outpouring of support that they've received since NSW Health named their venue in an alert.
"We just want to say a massive thank you for all the kindness we've had over the past few hours," Mr Wilson said.
"We were already shut for 11 weeks this year due to COVID-19 - and we're a husband and wife team - so this year had already been a massive hit for us, financially and mentally."
"But we've had so many people message and call and email, and we appreciate their support so much. We will be back open as soon as it's safe - but now we just have to wait for our results, and then for further advice from NSW Health."
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