Well, a bunch of people have left joke Google reviews for the Woodville Pizza Bar in Adelaide after a worker who tested positive for COVID-19 lied to contact tracers, plunging the state into a six-day ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown.
Many South Australians were mad that they were forced into an unnecessary lockdown, so have now taken it upon themselves to spam the now infamous pizza shop with fake Google reviews.
Most of the reviews have since been deleted, but thanks to the screenshot function, you can still find many of them on Twitter.
Google reviews are flowing in thick and fast for the Woodville Pizza Bar — where a worker lying to Covid-19 contact tracers resulted in a state-wide lockdown… #SAlockdown pic.twitter.com/3VHJzrKfrp
— Chelsea Daniels (@CK_Daniels) November 20, 2020
Good times in the Woodville Pizza Bar Google reviews #SAlockdown pic.twitter.com/xzEHFMvxKy
— Patrick Keam (@patkeam) November 20, 2020
— Patrick Keam (@patkeam) November 20, 2020
https://twitter.com/who_is_mr/status/1329697809558224896
Angry South Australians are also spamming the Woodville Pizza Bar Facebook page.
Facebook page of the Woodville Pizza Bar flooded with spam & satirical messages, after today’s revelation surrounding the #SALockdown: pic.twitter.com/lcsWcimCIL
— Leonardo Puglisi (@Leo_Puglisi6) November 20, 2020
However, other people on Twitter pointed out that there may have been outside pressures on the man to lie to authorities.
I don’t know the circumstances of the Woodville Pizza Bar liar, but I know a little about migrants who work in the cash economy, desperate to make a new life. If that is his situation, then most of us are lucky we don’t understand how the lying may have felt necessary.
— Fiona Clark (@fionaclark_) November 20, 2020
Just a note of caution. We don’t know the motivations of the person who misled the authorities. What pressures they faced. There’s no doubting the seriousness of what has occurred. But some of the social media commentary is vile.
— Nick Harmsen (@nickharmsen) November 20, 2020
On Friday, it was revealed that South Australia would end its lockdown early, after a man lied to contact tracers and said he had contracted COVID-19 after purchasing a pizza from the Woodville Pizza Bar.
The truth was that he had actually worked at the pizza shop for a number of shifts, alongside a colleague who also worked a second job as a security guard in Adelaide’s hotel quarantine program.
The reason the lie caused so much fear in health authorities, is that they believed that if someone could contract the virus from a pizza box, then a wide range of people may have been exposed to the virus through “casual transmission.”
SA Premier Steven Marshall said that if that individual had been truthful then the state would not have gone into a six-day lockdown.
“The second consequence of that lie is this person has numerous associates, persons of interest that we are now trying to identify and locate that we would not have had to do so had they been truthful from the beginning,” Marshall said.
“There is an absolute need for us to move quickly over the next 24 36 hours to identify and locate these people so we know we have eliminated the risk of this particular strain spreading further into the community.”
Rest in pepperoni, Woodville Pizza Bar.
