Renee Hemmerling is relieved after her COVID-19 test results came back negative. (submitted photo/Renee Hemmerling)

By Angela Brown

Staying safe

N.B. woman ‘relieved’ COVID-19 test result comes back negative

Mar 18, 2020 | 12:11 PM

A North Battleford woman self-quarantined after visiting with a friend who tested positive for COVID-19 and is now relieved after her own test results came back negative.

Renee Hemmerling said she feels “awesome” after getting the good news Tuesday.

“I feel great because I know that my family and friends aren’t at risk from me,” she said. “But I still feel concerned for what’s going on right now, and hope that people in the community are actually taking this [pandemic] seriously.”

Hemmerling self-quarantined at home with her family as a precaution since March 11. She was tested for COVID-19 at a local medical clinic and isolated while awaiting test results.

Today she said she still has a bit of a cough and some congestion, however, so the nurse she spoke with recommended she may want to self isolate until she feels better, even though she tested negative, to build up her immune system. After that she plans to simply practise the usual social distancing protocol —keeping a distance of about two metres from others, similar to everyone else.

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“My husband is able to go back to work because he is not feeling any symptoms at all, and my kids are fine,” Hemmerling added.

The mom who works from home thanked her neighbours for their support.

“I feel very comforted that our neighbours around us were all [saying]: ‘Do you need anything? We can drop anything off.'”

Hemmerling mentioned while a few people have said she shouldn’t have gone public with her story, many more people told her it was helpful that she chose to share her experience so more people “can understand the gravity of this situation, even in our community,” and she said she is glad she did.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow