Australians’ Experiences of COVID-19: Stage 4 Survey Findings, 2023

Abstract

The national online survey findings reported in this report are from the most recent stage of the ‘Australians’ Experiences of COVID-19’ project. Conducted in mid-September 2023, this representative survey investigates 1,000 Australians’ experiences of COVID-19 and preventive practices such as vaccination and face mask wearing, their perceptions of COVID-19 risk, who they think are the most trusted sources of COVID-19 information and their views on the federal and their state/territory governments’ current management of the pandemic. The survey results show that the pandemic continues to badly affect Australians in terms of accumulated infections and prevalence of long COVID. Yet respondents were equivocal about the extent to which COVID-19 is a continuing risk to Australians. For the most part they were not strongly supportive of continued preventive actions against infection such as face mask wearing and vaccination. They did not hold high trust in any COVID-19 information source, including medical experts and scientists. Respondents were divided about how well their governments were managing the pandemic.

Note:

Funding Information: This research was supported by funding provided by UNSW Sydney to Deborah Lupton as part of her professorial appointment.

Conflict of Interests: None.

Ethical Approval: Approved by the UNSW Human Research Ethics Committee (HC230531). All participants were provided with an information and consent form before starting the survey.

Keywords: COVID-19,Australia,social research,survey,experiences,risk,vaccination,face masks,long COVID