Shock belief one in six Aussies have

By | July 14, 2021

One in six Aussies believes life will never return to normal, according to a Australian Bureau of Statistics survey on the impacts of the pandemic.

The June 2021 edition of the Households Impacts of COVID-19 Survey offers a snapshot of the situation households face as they grapple with pandemic life.

One in six people (16 per cent) felt life would never return to normal. This was up, compared with 11 per cent in November and nine per cent in July 2020.

More than a quarter (26 per cent) reported life would take more than a year to return to normal.

Meanwhile about one in five (22 per cent) people said life did not change or had returned to normal.

Survey respondents from Victoria — which has experienced the highest number of lockdowns in the country — were more likely than the rest of Australia to report it would take more than a year for life to return to normal.

Victorians were also less likely to report that life had already returned to normal, than the rest of Australia.

One in five Australians also revealed they experienced high or very high levels of psychological distress in the four weeks prior to being surveyed.

Those feelings were mostly reported by younger Australians aged 18 to 34 (30 per cent) compared with 18 per cent of people aged 35 to 64 and 10 per cent of people aged 65 years and over.

When it came to getting the jab, most Australians – 73 per cent – agreed or strongly agreed they would get a COVID-19 vaccine when it became available and was recommended for them, up from 68 per cent in May.

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The main reasons people may not get vaccinated were based on concerns about potential side-effects and to a lesser extent, vaccine effectiveness.

When it came to pandemic life, the most common aspects people wanted to continue once restrictions eased were working from home and spending more time with family and friends.

When the survey of 3414 Australian adults was conducted between June 11 and 20, local Covid cases had been detected in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

Victoria had enforced a 14-day lockdown in some areas to manage the spread, while NSW was putting in new measures such as compulsory face masks.

Health and Fitness | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site