As Australia’s borders open and some public health measures ease, we’ve been warned to expect more COVID cases.

This means we’ll also expect to see a rise in “long COVID”, where some people have ongoing, severe fatigue plus a wide range of other symptoms. These include pain, as well as breathing, neurological, sleep and mental health problems. These symptoms can last for weeks and months, even when the initial illness was mild.

Recent modelling looked at how many long-COVID cases Australia can expect within two years of re-opening. With limited relaxation of public health measures, the modelling shows we can expect tens of thousands of cases of long COVID. If public health measures are relaxed further, we can expect many more.

It’s early days for the Omicron variant. It’s too soon to know its impact on long COVID. We also don’t know if high levels of vaccination might affect long-COVID rates. The evidence for that is mixed. But what is certain is Australia needs to start planning how to manage the health and economic impacts of long COVID after re-opening, write Deakin University’s Martin Hensher and Mary Rose Angeles. That’s on top of the long COVID cases from the Delta wave earlier this year.

And later today, the government will release its mid-year budget update. Keep an eye on our coverage this afternoon, led by Michelle Grattan, Richard Holden and John Hawkins.

Anna Evangeli

Deputy Editor: Health+Medicine

We calculated the impact of ‘long COVID’ as Australia opens up. Even without Omicron, we’re worried

Martin Hensher, Deakin University; Mary Rose Angeles, Deakin University

More cases of long COVID can put strain on our health system. So we need to think about where and how we offer care.

That reverse mortgage scheme the government is about to re-announce, how does it work?

Colin Zhang, Macquarie University; Ning Wang, University of Wollongong

If you are aged 70 with a million dollar home you could get up to $308,000 per year from a little-known scheme with risks.

‘They should have a roadblock’: why the NT must delay opening its border to protect First Nations people

Claire Smith, Flinders University; Jasmine Willika, Flinders University

The current string of COVID outbreaks in remote Aboriginal communities are due to get worse if the NT government opens its borders on December 20, as planned.

Shark bites are rare. Here are 8 things to avoid to make them even rarer.

Adam Smith, James Cook University

The ‘SharkSmart’ approach, adopted by the Queensland government, aims to educate people to take responsibility for reducing shark bite risk by changing their own behaviour. But can humans change?

30 years since The Addams Family hit the big screen, it is still the perfect blend of horror and comedy

Daryl Sparkes, University of Southern Queensland

They’re creepy, kooky and all together still a great film 30 years on.

Hibbert’s flowers and Hitler’s beetle – what do we do when species are named after history’s monsters?

Kevin Thiele, The University of Western Australia

One of Australia’s largest groups of flower species is named after a wealthy British slave-trader. And Nazi memorabilia collectors have almost sent “Hitler’s beetle” extinct. It’s time for a change.

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