In just one month three helplines were contacted 140,000 times, and 7.2m Medicare-subsidised services were delivered over six months
In just four weeks during the pandemic, Australians contacted three mental health helplines more than 140,000 times, and 7.2m Medicare-subsidised mental health services were delivered in just over six months.
On Thursday the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare published a series of reports examining the effect of Covid-19 on the health system, with data showing a substantial increase in mental health-related services since 20 March when pandemic restrictions were first introduced.
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Guardian World News
Georgia to uphold Biden’s win as Birx says states abandoned prevention tactics – live
- Raffensperger: ‘We counted three times and results remain unchanged’
- Sunday saw 175,663 new US Covid cases and 1,113 deaths
- Biden prepares for Republicans try to block cabinet picks
- Trump: Rudy Giuliani has coronavirus
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Donald Trump once again lashed out against Georgia’s Republican governor, as the state prepares to recertify Joe Biden’s victory there.
“The Republican Governor of Georgia refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What’s wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?” Trump said in a tweet.
The Republican Governor of Georgia refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What’s wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?
Xavier Becerra pledged to ensure Americans’ access to quality health care if he is approved as secretary of health and human services.
In Congress, I helped pass the Affordable Care Act. As California's Attorney General, I defended it. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, I will build on our progress and ensure every American has access to quality, affordable health care—through this pandemic and beyond.
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Joe Biden to nominate California attorney general Xavier Becerra as health secretary – reports
If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra will be the first Latino to head the federal health department
President-elect Joe Biden has reportedly picked California attorney general Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.
If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.
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Joe Biden names former Ebola tsar Ron Klain as chief of staff – as it happened
- Biden’s lead over Trump in the popular vote surpasses 5m
- ‘An embarrassment’: Biden criticizes Trump’s refusal to concede
- Pompeo promises smooth transition to ‘second Trump administration’
- Conservative supreme court justices suggest Obamacare will be upheld
- The misinformation media machine amplifying Trump’s election lies
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Waleed Shahid, the communications director for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, said Klain “understands the Democratic party has moved in a more progressive direction”.
Progressives and moderates came together to help elect Joe Biden. But post-election, the two camps have already begun to spar over the party’s future, with progressives saying that Biden should embrace more ambitious policy on climate change, policing and healthcare.
Ron Klain understands the Democratic Party has moved in a more progressive direction and that voters expect bold action.
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Best of luck to @RonaldKlain as he manages a team to act on the biggest crises of our time.
Progressives will keep pushing. pic.twitter.com/rxytnuAIy4
‘We are already beginning the transition’: Biden and Harris defend Obamacare – video
Joe Biden said he and vice-president elect Kamala Harris had already begun a transition before his swearing in as US president on 20 January and called Donald Trump's refusal to concede defeat 'an embarrassment'.
Biden said he believed he could 'get a lot done' as he and Harris defended the Affordable Care Act, which was brought before the supreme court in a legal challenge by Texas and other Republican-governed states that was backed by Donald Trump’s administration
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Joe Biden says Trump’s refusal to concede defeat ‘an embarrassment’ – live
- President-elect says he has not spoken to Trump since Saturday
- Biden decries ‘rightwing ideologues’ for trying to wreck Obamacare
- Justices’ questions suggest skepticism of Republican arguments
- British PM Boris Johnson congratulates Biden
- Pompeo promises smooth transition to ‘second Trump administration’
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Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has drafted “anti-mob” legislation that would expand the state’s Stand Your Ground Law that would allow citizens to shoot anyone they suspect is engaged in looting, the Miami Herald reports.
The legislation is a reaction to anti-police brutality, The Herald’s Ana Ceballos and David Ovalle report:
“It allows for vigilantes to justify their actions,” said Denise Georges, a former Miami-Dade County prosecutor who had handled Stand Your Ground cases. “It also allows for death to be the punishment for a property crime — and that is cruel and unusual punishment. We cannot live in a lawless society where taking a life is done so casually and recklessly.”
The draft legislation put specifics behind DeSantis’ pledge in September to crack down on “violent and disorderly assemblies” after he pointed to “reports of unrest” in other parts of the country after the high-profile death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Since election day, Donald Trump and other Republicans have filed a smattering of lawsuits in battleground states that have provided cover for Trump and other Republicans to say that the election still remains unresolved.
Legal experts have noted these suits are meritless, and even if they were successful, would not be enough to overturn the election results. Indeed, judges in several of these lawsuits have already dismissed them, noting the Trump campaign has failed to offer evidence to substantiate allegations of fraud.
Related: Trump's longshot election lawsuits: where do things stand?
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Nancy Pelosi: ‘We’re able to say that we have held the House’ – video
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the Democrats have held the majority in the House of Representatives as counting continues in the US election. Pelosi says campaigning on healthcare helped the Democrats retain their majority, with their message amplified during the coronavirus pandemic. 'Our purpose in this race was to win so that we could protect the Affordable Care Act and that we could crush the virus,' she says
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Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment is a wake-up call for women voters | Cecile Richards
It’s not only Roe v Wade on the line. Parental leave, affordable childcare, equal pay, the Affordable Care Act - all are under threat
The pandemic and its collateral economic crisis have illustrated like never before that women are the backbone of America. Before Covid-19, women made up more than half the workforce, nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, and the majority of caregivers. One in three jobs held by women has been designated as essential. Right now, millions of women are pulling off an impossible balancing act: working while trying to keep their families safe and healthy during a terrifying time. Others have lost jobs, have had their wages or hours cut, and more than 800,000 women have left the workforce.
This crisis is disproportionately burdening women, especially women of color. They need immediate relief, but instead of solving this crisis, Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have focused on one thing: pushing through a supreme court nominee who wants to take away healthcare for millions and strip away rights women have had for decades. And they’re doing it against the will of the majority of Americans, who believe that voters should decide who makes the next appointment to the court.
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Biden attacks Trump’s ‘rushed and unprecedented’ confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett – US politics live
- Full story: Barrett confirmed in major victory for conservatives
- Why Barrett’s addition to court may undermine climate fight
- Bob Woodward: The Trump Presidency – live event today
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Cecile Richards writes for us this morning that with the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, it is not only abortion rights and Roe v Wade on the line. Parental leave, affordable childcare, equal pay, the Affordable Care Act - all are under threat. That should be a wake-up call to female voters, she says.
It’s outrageous that an impeached president who lost the popular vote can install a supreme court justice who would gut the Affordable Care Act despite majority support for the law – a law that made it so that women can no longer be charged more for health coverage because of our gender, or denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition such as breast cancer. It’s equally outrageous to see Republican senators prioritizing this bad-faith confirmation process despite their failure to pass a desperately-needed coronavirus relief bill. But none of this is surprising. Barrett’s nomination is part of a broader effort by the extreme right to allow minority views to rule over the will of the majority of Americans – in this case, women.
Women have been the majority of voters in every national election since 1964, and we represent the majority of mail-in ballots and early votes heading into November. Over the last four years, we have shown our political force by marching for women’s rights and Black lives, volunteering for causes, and donating to campaigns. We are a supermajority, and we should have the undivided attention of every elected official in this country. But we don’t, and that’s because deliberate efforts to undermine our democracy have created a system that’s less and less responsive to the needs of the people, especially women.
Related: Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment is a wake-up call for women voters | Cecile Richards
Twitter will begin “pre-bunking” misinformation at the top of American users’ timelines in the final week before the US election, the company has announced. Facts about voting by mail and, once the count begins, election results, will be placed on the top of the timeline in an effort to get ahead of viral falsehoods before they are even posted.
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“Election experts confirm that voting by mail is safe and secure, even with an increase in mail-in ballots,” says one message the company will run. “Even so, you might encounter unconfirmed claims that voting by mail leads to election fraud ahead of the 2020 US elections.”
Twitter says the practice is an important new tool in its fight against viral misinformation, because it does not require the company to wait for a specific falsehood to be shared and then debunked. Under the company’s current approach, the only people to ever see its fact-check labels, which are applied to topics including Covid and voting, are those who have already seen a tweet with misinformation, placing the company on a permanent back foot.
“Pre-bunk” branding aside, the approach mirrors the strategy Facebook and Instagram have been using to fight Covid misinformation since the early days of the pandemic. Both sites have received prominent banners at the top of their respective feeds, which Facebook says has led to more than 600 million people clicking through to read information from health authorities including the NHS and WHO.
Coronavirus live news: ‘We cannot give up’ warns WHO chief; protests flare in Italy
Protests against Covid restrictions turn violent in Milan and Turin; US deaths up 10%; Pope to celebrate Christmas without congregation. Follow the latest updates
- Global coronavirus report: Italian police use tear gas to disperse anti-lockdown rally
- Pope Francis criticised for rarely wearing face masks
- Survey uncovers widespread belief in ‘dangerous’ Covid claims
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Tumbling numbers of pregnancies and marriages in Japan during the coronavirus pandemic are likely to intensify a demographic crisis in the rapidly ageing nation, Reuters reports.
Japan has the most aged society in the world, with more than 35% of its population expected to be 65 and over by 2050, a trend that poses risks for economic growth and straining government finances.
“I reckon the spread of the coronavirus is having many people worried about getting pregnant, giving births and rearing babies,” Tetsushi Sakamoto, minister in charge of responses to Japan’s declining birthrates, told a news conference on Friday.
Recently published official data showed the number of notified pregnancies in the three months to July fell 11.4% from a year earlier, while the number of marriages over the same period dropped 36.9%. The sharp decline in marriages matters because the majority of babies in Japan are born in wedlock.
The US Trump administration will this week announce a plan to cover out-of-pocket costs of Covid-19 vaccines for millions of Americans who receive Medicare or Medicaid, Politico reported late on Monday, citing four people with knowledge of the plan.
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According to the plans, Medicare and Medicaid will now cover vaccines that receive emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. The changes are expected to be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the report added.
The planned rule will also address other Covid-19 related issues like expanding flexibility for Medicaid patients seeking care for the coronavirus, Politico reported.
CMS did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular working hours.