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Melanie Fournier doesn’t know how she caught COVID-19.

The 42-year-old Dollard-des-Ormeaux resident works in health and social services. She was taking all the recommended precautions, practising social distancing, and she hadn’t travelled.

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“I work with youth and families,” Fournier said on the phone Thursday from her home, where she is under self-quarantine. “We were asked to go into the office, but because of the protocols in place I hadn’t seen any clients in two weeks.”

Her ordeal began a week ago.

“Thursday night I was perfectly fine,” she said. “I felt probably the healthiest I have ever felt in my entire life. The next day, I woke up and felt a tickle in my throat. I coughed a bit, then 20 minutes later I had full fever. I started hacking and coughing, I couldn’t breathe. It happened so fast.”

Fournier tried to pull herself together.

“I thought: OK, I work in health services. I’ve been trained. I have all the numbers. I know what to do.”