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Leblanc said that in addition to Public Health contact tracers, her mother personally contacted all attendees at the Sackville gathering to inform them of her diagnosis.<\/p>\n
This led to rumours circulating, in person and online, including one recently that the six cases announced on Jan. 3 included Sackville-based COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n
CHMA can\u2019t verify the locations of any cases announced by the province, as public health does not disclose the locations of cases within health zones, but Leblanc is confident that no one she had contact with in Sackville ended up contracting COVID-19.<\/p>\n
At the time of the Christmas gatherings, Leblanc was asymptomatic, though she said she did have mild cold symptoms about a week prior.<\/p>\n
At first her husband, former Canadian bodybuilding champion Jean Leblanc, started feeling unwell, with \u201ca bit of cough and a fever,\u201d said Leblanc.<\/p>\n
Leblanc said the couple didn\u2019t think much of it, and weren\u2019t that familiar with the COVID-19 symptoms at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re aware that COVID exists, but in our province the numbers are so low,\u201d said Leblanc, \u201cso a lot of us, we just don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everybody thinks, oh, it won\u2019t happen to me. But you know, it can happen to you and that\u2019s what we found out,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Later, Leblanc said she herself had a low grade fever and a sinus headache, but both cleared up within 36 hours.<\/p>\n
Around or about Dec. 20, Leblanc said Jean started to get muscle aches, and although his cold symptoms had cleared up, he stayed around the house and did not feel good.<\/p>\n
Heather, on the other hand, felt fine.<\/p>\n
The couple decided Jean would remain home so as to avoid passing any cold or flu on to vulnerable relatives, and that Heather would participate in family Christmas gatherings.<\/p>\n
On the afternoon of Christmas Day, Leblanc noticed she wasn\u2019t able to taste her food very well. She also became more concerned about Jean, and decided to leave and come home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still didn\u2019t think that this could happen to me,\u201d said Leblanc. \u201cI was in a lot of disbelief.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering that we didn\u2019t travel, we didn\u2019t go anywhere. We\u2019ve not been out of the province since last Christmas. We haven\u2019t been anywhere, we haven\u2019t been around anyone that\u2019s been out of province\u2026 So there was not a lot of reasons to think that we would be at risk. But sadly, that is not the case with anyone,\u201d said Leblanc.<\/p>\n
Leblanc says that out of caution, she did wear a mask on Christmas Day. Her mother has a lung condition, and so they are typically careful about transmitting colds and flu.<\/p>\n
The mask, Leblanc believes, could have saved her mother\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u201cHadn\u2019t I worn a mask, perhaps she might have contracted it,\u201d said Leblanc. \u201cAnd if she contracted it, we don\u2019t know what could have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
While public health recommends non-medical masks in indoor public spaces and outdoor public spaces where distancing is not possible, they do stress that mask-wearing is not a substitute for isolation or distancing.<\/p>\n
The chance that her mother could have been infected haunts Leblanc.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of guilt in that,\u201d she said. \u201cI do have a lot of regrets. But we all make mistakes and, obviously, that was a big one for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leblanc returned home, and decided that after her concerns at Christmas dinner, she would get tested for COVID-19.<\/p>\n
She went for a test at about 11:30 a.m. on Boxing Day. Meanwhile Jean\u2019s symptoms got worse. By that afternoon, they were both at the Georges Dumont hospital. After a long wait, Jean was admitted to the ICU with pneumonia. And then test results for both Heather and Jean came back: they were both positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom that point forward, it was the biggest nightmare of our entire lives,\u201d said Leblanc. \u201cI was escorted out of there, immediately. I didn\u2019t have time to kiss my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leblanc was worried for Jean because he has underlying heart issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was hysterical,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt like a death in the family. It was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leblanc called her mother immediately, and she in turn began to notify everyone who had been at the Sackville gathering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was no more than probably seven to eight hours later, and people were posting on social media that a family had a gathering. And of course, they said 40 people, and they said I was down there three days in a row. So you know, they added things to the story,\u201d said Leblanc.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how things escalate,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd then it causes an uproar, and the community starts to lash out. They start to get angry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leblanc said she doesn\u2019t blame people for panicking. Part of the issue, she said, is that while public health aims for confidentiality, and there really isn\u2019t any, particularly in a small town.<\/p>\n
Ironically, more information coming from public health could have helped Leblanc\u2019s situation, because it wasn\u2019t until Zone 1 cases started to get reported on Jan. 3, that rumours of spread in Sackville ramped up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should be reporting numbers in each community,\u201d said Leblanc. \u201cNot just the zone. Because Zone 1 has a big area to cover.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leblanc said she now understands why people would hide the truth or even lie to public health.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the humiliation and the blaming and shaming,\u201d said Leblanc.<\/p>\n
Leblanc said that after her diagnosis, she and her family did everything right.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody did exactly what they were instructed to do,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think that we isolated that case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody abided by public health advice, rules, regulations,\u201d she added. \u201cSome of them weren\u2019t happy about it,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I was very proud of all of them for sticking it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
However rumours in Sackville persisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people in the community started to accuse our family of infecting others in the community,\u201d said Leblanc.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic health is planning for everyone to be honest,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there\u2019s no confidentiality, because of the people in the circle that is affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, one person tells one person, that person tells two people, those two people tell five people,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd eventually, you know, it gets everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday marks the end of 14 days of self-isolation for Leblanc\u2019s Sackville family. She said she feels a lot of guilt and responsibility over the trouble they faced, having to cancel further holiday plans, missing work and in some cases losing income.<\/p>\n
Leblanc is hoping that her story will prompt more people not to ignore or deny possible symptoms, and encourage people to just go get tested.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I would have just brought my husband to the hospital before the holidays,\u201d said Leblanc, \u201cand we would have known, and none of this would have ever happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
And also, Leblanc wants her story to be a reminder of how important it is to be kind. \u201cBe kind to others, because we need it right now,\" she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of us are not going to make it through this. That\u2019s why we need to be kind and we need to be understanding and stop blaming people for having a virus,\" she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Dieppe woman who attended a family gathering in Sackville over Christmas, and was later diagnosed with COVID-19, is speaking out about her experience. Heather Leblanc is from the Sackville area, and currently lives in Dieppe where she is director of the Canadian Physique Alliance. Leblanc attended one gathering in Sackville on Christmas Day with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":31742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,218],"tags":[284,4880,823],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31736"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31736"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=31736"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=31736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}