Melissa Kennett, a 49-year-old mother, has detailed her COVID-19 experience, along with her 24-year-old son Kane and her sister Joanne Saunders.

They, along with Kane's girlfriend, were all cleared of the virus on Monday.

Ms Kennett said the trio was tested on July 31 after booking in the previous day.

She said Kane and Joanne had shown cold symptoms and when she woke up that morning, she also felt unwell.

"Kane had a cold, on the Thursday I said 'you need to go and get tested'. I rang and booked him in," she said.

"Joanne also had headaches and on Friday morning I had a cold, so I went in as well."

Ms Kennett said the symptoms were nothing worse than a cold, although Joanne explained she had severe headaches and back pain, a sore throat, runny nose and diarrhea.

Kane and Ms Kennett were told they were positive to the virus the following Sunday, August 2, while Ms Saunders was cleared.

Ms Saunders was retested and returned a positive test on August 4.

Ms Kennett said they were surprised to be cleared of COVID-19 on Monday so quickly by government health authorities and given paperwork to confirm they could return to the community.

She said it had been explained to her the clearance of patients related to the time they were first exposed to the virus.

The resident said the check system involved a lot of double handling without those contacting the family knowing what others had done.

"There was a lot of doubling up, there was not just one person checking us, there were a few," she said.

"Australian Defence Force people were ringing and checking where we were over the eight days. That was random and they rang a couple of times," she said.

"There are also text messages that you have to respond to and they can tell where your phone is.

"There was one day when Joanne had a sleep and had her phone on silent. The police came around and she had to present to the window to make sure she was at home."

Ms Kennett said three different people rang about tracing her close contacts.

"There were multiple duplications and nothing was linked," she said.

"I thought we did the right thing by going on Facebook and telling people we were positive. We certainly copped some backlash but we thought it was worth it to let everyone know we had been in contact with to go and get tested straight away."

The long-time Portland resident said she understood the five people positive in the city were going all right.

"One is keeping quiet about it, but we decided to bring it all out in the open so the community had every chance to get tested, find out their situation and contain it," Ms Kennett said.

"I know a close contact of ours, who rang to get tested but was showing no symptoms, was refused a test until they were identified as a close contact two days later.

"I told them to lie and say they had cold symptoms so they could get tested straight away and that all happened before they were officially told they were a close contact."

Ms Kennett said she understood the 14 days' quarantine period started after known exposure to someone who was coronavirus positive.

"For us it was just like having a cold," she said.

"But, we do have to remember a man in his 50s died at the Portland hospital and last week a man in his 30s died in Victoria."

The resident said after posting her positive test result on Facebook people she had forgotten had been in contact.

"I found going through my internet banking prompted me to remember where I had been. I remembered places that I had forgotten," she said.

"I was confident I was able to identify all my close contacts. I did feel bad for people who had to go and get tested and take time off.

"We tried to do everything we could for Portland to get over this cluster.

"Honestly it all happened that quick we had no time to think about what we going through, we were in the middle of it.

"Things are looking hopeful in Portland. We just hope everyone can recover."

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