Hayley Carson received a positive result from a PCR test on Sunday morning after originally testing positive on a rapid antigen test a few days earlier.
“It just travelled through friends – I’m not sure where that friend got Covid from, but it just travelled straight down the line and ended up at our house,” she told 1News.
The 19-year-old said she was double vaccinated and had booked in for a booster before testing positive.
“I was thinking ‘oh I have Covid but it’s only mild’ but I don’t think I could be any more wrong,” she said.
“I have just been tired, lethargic; the body aches and the fever have probably been the worst part. Just not being able to sleep, and of course the runny nose and sore throat.
“I haven’t left my bed in three days and I have felt so ill.”
Now, her family was navigating the realities of isolation at home.
“My mum and brother have somehow managed to avoid it,” Carson said.
“We are very careful about not sharing bathrooms, not sharing kitchen facilities. If I go into the kitchen, I wipe down everything that I touch.”
Carson and her dad had both tested positive and were now isolating at one end of the house, with her mum and brother isolating at the other end.
The other issue for her family was finding people to deliver essential supplies like groceries.
“I think the toughest part is that most of my friends have now been identified as a close contact – my sister who doesn’t live with us is a close contact – so finding people to get groceries and things for us it has been a bit of a challenge because we have all been potential cases,” she said.
As Covid-19 cases soar around the country, Carson’s message to New Zealanders was simple.
“Don’t treat it as a joke, because it’s really not when you have it.”
