Recovery Times For Covid-19

Dr Kerry Chant, Chief Medical Officer said data on recovery times of people with covid-19 had varied considerably and analysis will be ongoing.

“We have been ringing cases, confirmed cases at three weeks after their illness onset to ask them about their covid-19 symptoms to ascertain whether they have resolved and also to ask about underlying health status,” said Dr Chant.

“We can now confirm that as of 8pm on Monday the 20^th of April, we’ve got 1755 people that have recovered from covid infection,” she said.

“A preliminary analysis of that first 2000 case interviews has shown that half of cases recovered after 16 days, three quarters of cases recovered after three weeks and 95 percent of cases after six weeks,” she said.

“For those cases  that have not recovered yet at the time of the phone call at three weeks, we will be following them up at two weekly intervals and our data will continue to be updated,” she said.

“I suppose unsurprisingly older people were found to take longer than younger people to recover and there’ll be more detail in the data report that we’ll be releasing around this information,” Dr Kerry Chant.

Health Update

• 6 new cases have been reported
• More than 2500 people were tested yesterday
• 2,969 cases have been confirmed in total
• 249 people are being treated by NSW Health
• 21 people are in intensive care
• 17 people are on ventilators
• 194 people are being cared for in hospital in the home or out of hospital
• 42 people, including 14 staff and 28 residents have been confirmed from the Anglicare nursing home