Last Sunday a young man from Sydney - apparently on a camping trip that took in Nyngan and Broken Hill - visited Birdie Noshery.

We understand he sat inside and used the bathroom.

Birdie is a venue that only opened in 2020, and one that has been ruthless in enforcing health guidelines.

The traveller, who had earlier visited the BWS store in Sydney cluster location Berala, later tested positive to COVID.

For staff and customers at Birdie - as well as their close contacts - this is an uneasy time.

Contact tracers are locating those who visited the venue, and the government is spreading the word about specific places visited by the traveller.

Birdie Noshery is being deep cleaned and staff, customers and close contacts have been directed to get tested and isolate until the result is known.

Hundreds of people queued to be tested at Orange Showground and other venues on Tuesday.

The city now waits to see if the virus is here.

In recent weeks many had seemingly been drifting back towards normalcy.

Tourists flooded in over the new year, injecting sorely need cash into the economy, but there is no such thing as a free lunch, and with an increase in turnover came an increase in opportunity for the virus to skip Sydney's western city limits.

Many businesses and individuals have continued to take hygiene - sanitising hands, wiping trolleys, getting tested if necessary - seriously, however anyone who spends time around the CBD and in supermarkets knows that for others complacency has crept in.

There was considerable anger on social media about why the infected young man was travelling through Orange, but the facts remain unclear at this stage.

It is fair to question the strategy of allowing people from metropolitan areas to travel to the regions, but right here, right now, our energies are best spent reminding ourselves, our families and friends of the importance of washing hands, keeping socially distanced and wearing a mask as necessary.