The applicability of Symanzik Effective Field Theory (SymEFT) for the description of lattice artifacts assumes a local formulation of the lattice theory. We discuss the symmetries realised by tastes local in spacetime of unrooted staggered quarks, approaching mass-degenerate 4-flavour QCD in the continuum limit. An outlook on some implications for the asymptotic lattice-spacing dependence is given for spectral quantities as well as local composite fields.