Mr Evans, 47, was one of the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ballarat after returning from a snowboarding trip to the US state of Montana.

Despite suffering only minor symptoms, Mr Evans self-isolated on his farm as soon as he arrived back in Australia - before the federal government introduced the mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine - but it was 23 days before he was cleared of the virus and able to reunite with his partner and family.

While he considers himself lucky not to have developed the life-threatening symptoms that some patients have, and admits to getting angry about the infection during quarantine, he would hate for anyone else to contract the disease in the rush to reopen the community.

Premier Daniel Andrews yesterday announced a cautious start to the roll-back of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, allowing Victorians to host up to five visitors at home, meet outdoors in groups of 10 and take part in some recreational activities, from Wednesday.

From snowboarding on the high slopes and running up to 4km a day, Mr Evans now finds himself able to do little more than jog 500m as the infection has had a lasting impact on his lungs.

"It's a month to the day since I got the negative test back but if I run at any sort of pace I really struggle and wake up next morning with a cough ... so I've got to be really careful about what I do and how I exercise," he said.

"I like to be active but I'd struggle to run 500m now without feeling like it's something I probably shouldn't do. I'm slowly getting better but it's left something in my lungs that's making it hard to get back to it."

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A chest x-ray has cleared Mr Evans of long-term damage but he can feel the effects.

He is unsure where he contracted the infection because there had been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 before he left Montana.

"I got a bit of a light cough but I didn't feel too bad and I still went for a run," he said. "I got up the next day and felt pretty good."

The next day he flew from Montana to Los Angeles to catch a flight home.

"That night in the hotel in LA I got the shivers all of a sudden ... but I still didn't feel that bad and I had a good night's sleep."

Although not feeling 100 per cent, he spent the day walking around LA before his evening flight back to Australia - and before boarding he made a decision that possibly stopped the infection's spread to his partner and family.

"I'd called my girlfriend to bring two cars down to the airport so she and my dad drove there, and as soon as I got out of the airport in Melbourne, they went home together in her car and I put everything in my car, drove myself home so I didn't have to sit close to anybody, then pretty much went inside and stayed there" he said.

Another lucky strike was his business class seat on the flight home, which he splurged on using Frequent Flyer points, and which saw him seated more than two metres from the nearest passenger.

That night his symptoms worsened.

"I had a bad cough come on then, and I woke up about 1am and the bed was totally wet from me being sweaty. I had to change my PJs because I was soaking wet - I've never seen anything like it before."

It happened again the next night.

"Then I felt weird, had no appetite and I usually like my food. I wasn't actually feeling sick and wanting to lay day and rest, but I had this weird, numb feeling almost like someone had control of my body and I've never had that sort of feeling before."

The cough continued to get worse.

"I've got asthma as well but I haven't had a lot of it in recent years but the coughing was bringing on the asthma cough which made it hard to breathe."

"Then I started coughing up a bit of blood which was the scariest thing of all when that happened.

At one point he found his son's asthma nebuliser, which provided some relief.

"That sort of lasted for next five days. It wasn't like I was continually coughing but I'd get up in the morning, cough up some muck and phlegm and a bit of blood, then for the rest of the day I wouldn't cough much.

"Then gradually that seemed to dissipate a bit."

Mr Evans had his first COVID-19 test in Creswick two days after he arrived back in Australia, which quickly came back positive.

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He had a follow-up test at the Sebastopol testing clinic two weeks later when he was "feeling pretty good" but the virus was still present.

Five days later a further test gave him the all-clear, even though he still didn't feel back to normal.

"Ever since I had it it has affected my asthma and given me that asthma wheeze so it's a bit hard to do anything really physical again. I still wasn't feeling 100 per cent, even though the test was negative, so I went back again after another week and it was still clear."

Ten days after the first negative test result he tried to go for a run, but ended up coughing up blood.

A further test and x-ray both came back negative and he was advised to take it easy.

Despite the ordeal, Mr Evans considers he was probably luckier than some others forced to quarantine.

With his parents living next door on the farm, his mum would drop over something for dinner, and his girlfriend would bring groceries and leave them on the back door and have a chat through the window.

"In that respect it was pretty good and I didn't have any issues, but when you are there at night by yourself, especially early on, you worry what's going to happen.

"You think all sorts of things in your head when sitting around by yourself. I really worried how I got it and it made me angry.

"I almost felt at the time I had been picked out. How did nobody else have it there? How did I get it? Somebody else must have had it.

"We will never know where I caught it from, or where the virus itself really came from."

Also tough was the extra time away from his children and partner.

"My kids live with me half the time and my partner spends time here as well," he said. "I had not seen the kids for five weeks while I was away, then it was another three, nearly four weeks after I got home until I could see them.

"After I got the all-clear I spent a good solid day cleaning, spraying everything, then I left it a few extra days before I let anyone in."

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