In the News

On March 31, Andrea Root of Whittier, Calif., gave birth to her first child surrounded by doctors and nurses equipped with thick plastic face shields and multiple face masks who kept their distance, fearful that the 38-year-old was carrying covid-19.

Within moments of her son's birth, doctors whisked him away into the nearby neonatal intensive care unit — a precautionary measure taken to protect the infant from potentially contracting the novel coronavirus from his mother. Dazed, Root began to sob.

"We have never prioritized mental health in this country," said Sampson, an actor and activist, speaking Monday at a Los Angeles City Council meeting where he and other Black Lives Matter Los Angeles representatives advocated for changes to the city's budget. "Black and indigenous and brown folk in this country need healing, deserve healing, but instead are met by more trauma by these systems."

An 18th birthday can mean many things. It's a formal step into adulthood. It's the newfound right to vote, get a tattoo, join the armed forces, be called for jury duty.

Throughout the summer of 2012, Tylor Morgan would call his sister Lacey at night and beg her to come over and sit with him.

Nurse Camille Davis has watched more than 30 patients die from coronavirus infection, and has sobbed while holding her phone close to them so loved ones could say their goodbyes. Her long drives home are filled with worry about transmitting the disease to her 8-year-old son.

Three months into the coronavirus pandemic, the country is on the verge of another health crisis, with daily doses of death, isolation and fear generating widespread psychological trauma.

Federal agencies and experts warn that a historic wave of mental-health problems is approaching: depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.

A top emergency room doctor at a Manhattan hospital that treated many coronavirus patients died by suicide on Sunday, her father and the police said.

B. spoke to me by Zoom from the car parked outside their house—we couldn't talk when B. was at work, or inside the house, where B.'s children were playing. B. has also used the car to Zoom with colleagues about trying to devise safety protocols for their workplace, because those, too, are conversations B. can't have at work. B. is the medical director of an inpatient psychiatric unit in a small hospital within a large for-profit network. The hospital's administration, B.