The virus was, in fact already here, but it's the date a seven-day snap lockdown came into effect and it's from this date that cases began escalating in the city and spreading across the region.

It's also the day that 13-year-old Kaliah West was sent home from school, along with the rest of Dubbo's school students. Two days later, she tested positive to COVID-19.

In under two weeks, six out of 10 family members would also come down with the disease, and Kaliah's 63-year-old grandfather would spend eight days on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit at Dubbo Hospital.

This was despite the family doing everything right - they were careful to maintain social distance, they had sanitising stations inside and outside the house, and they wore masks.

Kaliah's mother, Alissa West spoke to the Daily Liberal about the impact COVID has had on her family.

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"Six of us in this household - we call it our little village - we all tested positive," she said. "We social distanced - instead of the 1.5 metres, we were sitting 5 to 10 metres away from each other, we had masks on, we did everything we thought was right.

"Kaliah didn't come out of her room unless it was for the bathroom and shower, and she would message me and let me know 'I'm going to come out of my room', so we made sure no one was near that part of the house."

The family lives on a property out of town. Alissa and her parents are in the same house, while her grandparents live separately.

Five days after Kaliah contracted the virus, Alissa's father tested positive. On the night of August 20, Alissa and her mother began experiencing symptoms.

"I started to get the chills, the sweats, the headaches, and the nausea feeling so I got up the next morning, got tested and came straight home," she said.

She received a positive result that night. NSW Health sent a mobile testing unit for her mother, but no results ever came back. Three days later, another mobile testing site was sent out, and her mother then returned a positive result. Alissa's grandmother also tested positive.

Then, on the 25^th, her grandfather also contracted the virus.

"We had about five ambulances out here in the matter of a week," Alissa said. "On day two I was in the shower, I couldn't even stand up. I was so exhausted, and they say day five to 10 is the worst, I was thinking if this is how I'm feeling on day two, I'd hate to know what I'm gonna feel like at the worst of it."

Her father's condition worsened by the end of August and he was taken to hospital after "struggling to breathe".

The next day they received a phone call to say their father was in ICU on a ventilator, where he would remain for eight days.

"We waited that day, thinking we'd get a phone call to say 'you can come and get Dad', the phone call we got was to say that Dad was in ICU and in a very bad way. He was on a ventilator.

"All I can say is, I am forever grateful for the staff at Dubbo Hospital because I believe if it was not for them, my father may not be here today.

"I had my birthday during my COVID sickness, and the only thing I wanted was for my father to come home. That day, they told us...they were going to take him off the ventilator, so that was a birthday wish come true."

All family members are now at home. Alissa said her father is doing a "lot better", but still had a long road ahead.

Kaliah experienced symptoms far milder compared to the rest of the family, and thankfully only lasted around three days, while the rest of the family was "down and out" for 10 to 12 days.

As well as nausea, headaches and fatigue, Alissa said she had had severe stomach cramps due to not being able to eat.

"I didn't feel like eating but would get severe cramping because you're obviously starving. It might have been an orange or an apple would be the best you could eat."

All family members except Alissa and Kaliah had received one vaccine dose at the time they were infected. By October 1 all family members will be fully vaccinated.

"I was skeptical and thought of the conspiracies and that sort of thing," Alissa said. "When it started getting a bit closer, I thought 'this might be real', and then it was real because we lived it, and we all got different levels of illness in our household.

"Western health were absolutely amazing...we were just so lucky we had each other, I could not think of having to do this on my own."

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