By Melissa Grant
It’s the phone call no parent in Australia – or indeed the world – wants to receive right now.
I felt a knot forming in the pit of my stomach as the health worker on the other end of the line began explaining that my two young children had been in close contact with a coronavirus infected person.
My kids, aged three and seven months, and I had all been sitting in close proximity to the infectious person on a flight.
Was the person wearing a mask? How close did they get to my children? Had they used the bathroom before I used the change table in there?
So many thoughts started running through my mind as I worried whether my children could have been infected with a virus that has hospitalised and killed so many people around the world.
When was the person tested? When did they begin showing symptoms? It was Thursday morning and we had only stepped off the Sydney-Brisbane Qantas flight on Monday afternoon.
As I hung up the phone, the thoughts continued to race through my mind. Had I done the right thing by getting on the flight with two young kids? Should we have driven thousands of kilometres instead?
Despite having arrived at our new home, the nightmare of moving from Melbourne to Brisbane during the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t over.
The flight was essential travel – we had already been separated from my husband for nearly three weeks and feared it could be months before we were reunited if we didn’t make the move.
To get to our destination, we had to board two flights – both of which were unexpectedly packed. It was Easter Monday but I was alarmed the flights were so full given all the social distancing measures in place, including those at the airport terminal.
Perhaps, if we knew the flights were going to be so crowded we would have delayed our travel or considered driving up (although this would have been a total nightmare with two kids).
I can’t change the fact my children (and myself) have been potentially exposed to this insidious virus.
All I can do now is closely monitor us for any symptoms and remain at our home to ensure we don’t potentially expose other families to the virus and the gut-wrenching anxiety that goes with it.
