Long road back for Wodonga Plaza businesses as customers hold off after COVID-19 exposure

The plaza was closed on Saturday and while all but three stores, Rivers, Cotton On and Ally Fashion, which were deemed tier-one exposure sites, have reopened, trading has been at snail's pace.

Nation Street and Surf owner Luke Wilson believes it has scared off customers.

"We opened on Sunday for a few hours to try and get some money in the till, but the plaza was dead," he said.

"It's trying to get in people's heads that the plaza is all good. You're not going to die if you come here, you're not going to get COVID.

"It's not a dangerous site, but it's trying to get people back in here again because it had been buzzing."

Mr Wilson had only one staff member required to get a test, which came back negative.

John Trimble has been in his sunglasses business BrightEyes for 23 years and was incredibly frustrated to be closed for three days as he and his other member of staff awaited test results.

He questioned the need for so many people to be tested.

"It's a ludicrous system," he said.

"They do not triage so they have people lining up for hours and 99 per cent of them don't need to be tested because they don't have symptoms.

"They do not ask you the triage question until you get to the point where someone is going to give you a test.

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"There's some people out there being turned away who have symptoms.

"Nothing has happened to the person who caused it, but others have been affected."

Mr Trimble said the only reason he came forward to be tested was to reopen his store, but faced a lengthy wait.

"I went on Saturday afternoon and got told to go away, so I went again at 7am on Sunday and three hours later I was tested at Vermont Street," he said.

"Look what it's done to the economy of the place. It's totally ridiculous."

Victoria Lyons manages pop-up store Envy of Bali and was told late on Friday the centre would be closed.

"We were back here on Monday and the whole centre was quiet," she said.

"I think it's going to take a while for people to think it's OK to come back.

"Now that Albury is opened up again, more people might go to Albury."

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