Jamie Mackay, host of The Country radio show, has Covid. Photo / NZ Herald
Covid finally came to The Country on Saturday morning when host Jamie Mackay tested positive for the virus.
Mackay came down with Omicron after his wife, Penny, had tested positive the week before.
Penny is a teacher and also coaches school sports teams, so Mackay thought his positive result was inevitable.
"Schools are a bit of a petri dish for coronavirus," he said.
Luckily for Mackay, his symptoms were mild enough for him to "get on with it and get over it".
Although he was feeling "a bit listless" with a head cold and cough, Mackay decided to run The Country from his kitchen table.
This is where things got a bit technical.
Rowena Duncum, The Country's executive producer, sprang into action to secure a rugby commentary broadcast kit from Forsyth Barr Stadium.
"NZME only has two of these kits. One is in Eden Park and the other one's now on Mackay's kitchen table," she laughed.
This was no mean feat considering Duncum was on annual leave in Northland at the time.
"There's nothing to bring you back to earth when you're lying on a beach in Northland, like a text to say your boss has Covid," she said.
Once the gear was collected from the home of the Highlanders, and set up at Mackay's "Roslyn Heights" home in Dunedin it was time for a test run.
A three-way phone call was made with Mackay at home and Duncum in the studio, and he was asked pressing questions like "what have you had for breakfast" and "what did you do over the weekend".
Embarrassingly the answer to both questions was "nothing".
The silence at the end of the line from the famously active and nutrition-conscious Mackay turned out to be a delay in the phone line.
Duncum fixed the delay along with a soft echo that was bouncing around during the conversation.
Finally, everything was ready to go. Mackay hosted Monday's programme from his kitchen set up and Duncum looked after the controls in the studio.
The show ran smoothly, with MacKay and Duncum effortlessly switching from The Country HQ in Dunedin's CBD to the splendid wooden table in the host's kitchen.
Although it was a tricky learning experience for everyone, Mackay was aware he was just "sitting at a kitchen table broadcasting [and] not really using that much energy".
He was also aware of the pressure Covid was having on his rural audience.
"I know there's a hell of a lot of farmers, for instance out there … who are milking cows, who are picking kiwifruit and who are crutching stock that they can't get into the works and they're doing it with coronavirus," he said on the show.
"You've got to put everything into perspective - I think I've been pretty lucky."
Families who have farmed their land since 1924 or earlier are eligible to apply for award.