'Couldn't get off the floor': What it's like to get COVID-19

A healthy Australian mother-of-two who tested positive to coronavirus has revealed to 9News what it felt like to fight through the virus.

Anna Liptak, of South Australia, said she was devastated when she received the call on March 12 confirming she had contracted the deadly disease.

"I told my children, my husband, they couldn't believe it," she said.

"I rang my mum and from that moment everyone started isolating."

Just hours after learning of the diagnosis, nurses arrived on her doorstep to transport her to hospital, where she was ushered through the back door.

At the time, she said "everyone here thinks I'm a disease".

She was placed into a secure room at Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide for five days, sealed off from the outside world by double glass doors.

Ms Liptak had travelled to a conference in Melbourne before she started to feel weak.

She was originally diagnosed with sinusitis, but as symptoms intensified she knew it was something more serious.

"(It) was like something I've never had before," she said.

"I couldn't get off the floor of my laundry, that's not like me. I couldn't get out of bed, I had a fever – it was so much worse than a little cold."

Of those she'd been in contact with, one family member tested positive.

Who Ms Liptak contracted the virus from remains a mystery.

"It's a severe viral infection that we all have to take very seriously, because it's probably not the people like me that are the ones we have to worry about," she said.

Ms Liptak is clear of the virus and has been told she is unlikely to contract it again, but she is taking every precaution when out in the community, including following social distancing advice.