A 63-year-old man charged with multiple counts of rape, attempted rape, aggravated sexual assault and indecent assault against six North-West children over three decades is on trial.

The trial was initially abandoned for a day on Wednesday when the accused man presented to court with what Justice Helen Wood said were "flu-like symptoms".

And it was further delayed because the man said he was provided an incorrect COVID-19 test result on Thursday morning, which later turned out to be the result from a test he had in August.

When the jury arrived in court on Thursday morning, Justice Wood told the jury the man's account of what had happened, and said she was hopeful the correct results would be soon received allowing for a 2pm start.

"He did the right thing. He rang ahead and was given a clear test indication over the phone," she said.

"But unfortunately it was a test result from earlier in the year. Not his test yesterday.

"I wouldn't have thought they would have done that."

A juror asked Justice Wood why the defendant was not in quarantine if he not yet received his correct results.

Justice Wood said he had attended court under the impression his result was negative, and had then returned to quarantine.

At 2pm when the court reconvened, the man had only just received a verbal confirmation of Wednesday's test being negative, and had yet to receive the official text message confirmation.

Justice Wood said she did not "quite know what the lag is" between the verbal confirmation and the text message, but it was understood that could take a couple of hours.

She said the court appreciated the jury had been inconvenienced by the delays, and allowed them to decide whether to wait for the text message or adjourn for the day.

The jury decided to adjourn until Friday to hear closing statements.

Justice Wood said the court had attempted to have the results fast-tracked to allow the trial to resume, but that had not occurred.

"We didn't receive much joy out of that," she said.

The trial is the first to proceed in the Burnie court room since it was renovated to accommodate up to 14 jurors with COVID-safe physical distancing and a video-linked public gallery.