More than 1 in 10 Australians have experienced long COVID-19: ANU study

CANBERRA - More than one in 10 Australians have suffered from long COVID-19 symptoms, a study has found.

The study, which was conducted by Australian National University (ANU) researchers, found nearly one third of Australian adults who have had COVID-19 had symptoms that lasted longer than four weeks.

Approximately 5 percent of adults have suffered from COVID-19 symptoms for three months or more after initially testing positive.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic in Australia, which has a population of about 25 million, has surpassed 10 million.

The study found that while it's now likely nearly half of all Australian adults have had COVID-19, it hasn't spread equally across the population.

Females, young adults and those living in middle-income households were the most likely to contract COVID-19.

"This is a snapshot of how Australians have experienced COVID-19 since early 2020," Nicholas Biddle, lead author of the research, said in a media release on Wednesday.

"89.5 percent of adults surveyed who've had COVID-19 reported having symptoms. Those who experienced symptoms of some kind were hit with around 10 different symptoms on average, with the most common being tiredness."

According to the study, around a quarter of Australians with symptoms experienced 13 or more, while another quarter experienced seven or less. A runny nose or sneezing, sore throat, cough and headache were also common, experienced by around three-quarters of those with symptoms.

It found people who reported multiple symptoms were more likely to experience a drop in their mental wellbeing.

"On the other hand, people who had short experiences with COVID-19 or few symptoms generally didn't experience a decline in wellbeing compared to those who had not had COVID-19," Biddle said.

The Department of Health last Friday provided the updates on national COVID-19 weekly current trends.

"Over the last week, 36,242 cases of COVID-19 were reported across Australia, an average of 5,177 cases per day," it said on its website.

The number of cases being treated in hospitals at a seven-day average is 1,548.