Imagine this. You’ve just returned home from your trip to Mexico. You started your 14-day quarantine, and suddenly you start feeling the symptoms of COVID-19.

That’s what Gladstone resident Kristine Loomis experienced after recently returning from vacation.

Her initial reaction was to call Health Links-Info Santé, where she was put on hold for three and a half hours after finally get through at 1 a.m.

She talks about her testing experience.

“I don’t know how many tests they’ve done in Portage, but when I got there, they had it all set up. They told me to wait in the car, and to phone a number, and they’ll get you registered in. Then they said I’d see a nurse in the side door dressed in a yellow suit. She’d come out the side door and wave me in.”

She got tested last Thursday, and she’s still awaiting the results. A travel companion of hers had also been tested, and in that instance, it took a full week before the results were in.

“There were two nurses that were helping me. We were beside the ambulance bay. They have it set up there. They were very competent, and the nurse who did it was a little nervous because she admitted it was her first (test), but she knew what she was doing, and it was fairly seamless.”

She recalls seeing no signage warning people of COVID-19 at the airport on her trip home.

“It was (just) welcome back to Canada. There were no signs, and they didn’t mention anything. There was one sign that said something about the swine flu coming back into Canada, but nothing about the coronavirus or COVID-19.”

She urges everyone who has travelled and does have symptoms to get tested. It may not be for yourself, but everyone around you.