About one in five people in Britain with coronavirus may suffer from long COVID-19, which means enduring coronavirus symptoms, new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed Wednesday.

According to the figures from the ONS, about a fifth of people keep having symptoms for five weeks or more while around one in 10 are affected for 12 weeks or more.

Overall, around 186,000 people in private households in England in the week beginning Nov. 22 were living with coronavirus symptoms that had persisted for between five and 12 weeks, the ONS said.

The ONS estimated that 11.5 percent of respondents were still experiencing fatigue, 11.4 percent had a cough and 10.1 percent had a headache five weeks after they tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, about 8.2 percent were still experiencing a loss of taste while 7.9 percent still had a loss of smell five weeks after testing positive for COVID-19.

Another 18,450 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 1,888,116, according to official figures released Tuesday.

The coronavirus-related deaths in Britain rose by 506 to 64,908, the data showed.

England is currently under a new three-tier system of coronavirus restrictions. The system, which put about 98 percent of England into the highest Tier Two and Three, is due to be reviewed on Wednesday.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.