The Informer: Messy ministerial habits, panda returns home

Governor-General David Hurley confirmed he handed the former prime minister control of multiple departments without an official swearing-in ceremony.

"Greg Hunt could have said Australians are not allowed to leave the country, and the prime minister could have put out [a statement] saying that they are," Anne Twomey, constitutional law expert at the University of Sydney said.

"They'd be in conflict, and then how do you deal with that? It would have been a complete mess, [and] that would have been the more problematic outcome."

Meanwhile, long COVID could become a big problem for Australia.

"We don't yet know enough about it, but what we do know from across the world is this is going to be a major health challenge for the coming couple of years at least," Australia's Health Minister, Mark Butler, said.

UNSW's Kirby Institute is among several Australian institutions investigating the profile and prevalence of long COVID.

Professor Gail Matthews, who leads the institute's Therapeutic Vaccine and Research Program, says there are up to 100 different symptoms, making it hard to settle on a definition.

Australia's department of health describes long COVID as symptoms that persist after four weeks and which could include fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunctions, heart palpitations, chest pain or tightness, changes to taste and smell and joint and muscle pain.

In lighter news, a seven-year-old panda, named Ravi, has returned home to Adelaide Zoo after two days on the run.

Ravi escaped from an enclosure in Adelaide Zoo, in the city's CBD, on Friday and was finally found in a fig tree at the neighbouring Adelaide Botanic Garden yesterday.

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