Some may be wondering where City of Gosnells Mayor Terresa Lynes has been lately, well the answer is in isolation after contracting Covid-19.
The recently-appointed mayor said while her positive diagnosis came as a shock, after recovering she felt a mixture of gratitude and annoyance.
“Looking back, I would say I had Covid several days before realising, I felt unwell on the Thursday so I did a rapid antigen test, it came back negative, so I assumed I was being overly cautious,” she said.
“The next day I felt no better so I went and had a PCR, which came back positive.
“During the next seven days of isolation, I had two days where I had cold/flu like symptoms, it also affected my voice so I sounded worse than I actually felt.
“Apart from the two days of symptoms I felt fine, and the two days were not that bad.
“I am annoyed as our lives have been turned upside down trying to avoid getting Covid, then when you do get it, for me it was no worse than a cold,” she said.
Like many in the community, mayor Lynes said she was apprehensive at first.
“The last two years of hearing about how bad Covid is through various media outlets, along with not really knowing too many people that have actually had Covid, has led to a mind-set of fear of the unknown,” she said.
“This is only relevant to my experience but when you recover so quickly it leaves you thinking what is all the fuss about?
“I am grateful that my experience was mild, this may or may not be due to my being triple vaccinated, we will never know.
“I have noted that people are very curious about individual experiences, which I why I am sharing mine.
“I do acknowledge that there are those that have had very different experiences to mine and there are those that have been very unwell and there have been lives lost,” she said.
Currently two of her fellow councillors have received a positive diagnosis, subsequently recovering but the mayor said it won’t stop council from being able to do its duty.
“The quorum for council is six and at this stage I have no reason to believe that we could not have a meeting on the 12th.
“I have always thought it was just a matter of time before I caught it.”
