Heart

• That is, before the shift of education of nurses and other health professionals into universities in the 1980s.
• But the recently released paper from an independent Commonwealth review on health workers’ “scope of practice” identifies the myriad of barriers preventing Australians from fully benefiting from health professionals’ skills.
• But we now have a sensible pathway to improve access to care, using all health professionals appropriately.

A new vision for general practice

• To do this, I logged onto my general practice’s website, answered the question about what I wanted, booked an appointment with the practice nurse that afternoon, got jabbed, was bulk-billed, sat down for a while, and then went home.
• The Commonwealth government has allowed the practice to be paid by Medicare for the nurse’s work.
• The venture capitalist practice owner has done the sums and decided allocating a room to a practice nurse is economically rational.
• It would be good if my general practice also had a physiotherapist, who I could see if I had back pain without seeing the GP, but there is no Medicare rebate for this.

How about pharmacists?

• Pharmacy owners especially have argued that pharmacists should be able to practise independently of GPs, prescribing a limited range of medications and dispensing them.
• This will inevitably reduce continuity of care and potentially create risks if the GP is not aware of what other medications a patient is using.

• Paying pharmacists independent prescribing may be part of the next agreement, the details of which are currently being negotiated.
• So their organisations highlight the risks of these changes, reopening centuries old turf wars dressed up as concerns about safety and risk.

Who pays for all this?

• Clearly the government must increase its support for comprehensive general practice.
• This should be the principal direction of primary care reform, and the final report of the scope of practice review should make that clear.
• In parallel, governments – state and federal – must ensure all health professionals are used to their best of their abilities.
• Read more:
  Pharmacists should be able to work with GPs to prescribe medicines for long-term conditions

Stephen Duckett was a member of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce and is a member of the Commonwealth Department of Health's Expert Advisory Panel for the Review of General Practice Incentives

• Now it’s our turn, as comet 12P/Pons–Brooks is creeping into view for the southern hemisphere.
• Comet Pons–Brooks is visible to the naked eye, but only if you know where to look.

Why do people call it the ‘devil comet’?

• It takes around 71 years to orbit the Sun, making the comet’s visits to the inner Solar System a rare treat for us here on Earth.
• At its heart (its nucleus), Pons–Brooks is a dirty snowball around 34 kilometres in diameter.
• As the comet came swinging back towards us in its orbit, astronomers spotted it back in 2020.

• Instead, it produces several large outbursts of activity, each time, emitting vast amounts of gas and dust in a very short period of time before settling down again.
• The solar wind pushed the resulting dust, gas and debris away from the Sun, giving the comet an unusual appearance.

Where (and when) should I look?

• It is currently visible low in the western sky after sunset, albeit almost lost in the glow of twilight.
• In the next few weeks, the comet will slowly climb higher in the evening sky.
• The two videos below show the location of the comet’s head at 6:30pm from mid-April through to mid-June, as seen from Toowoomba and Melbourne.
• The comet’s tails point away from the Sun – so will rise upwards from the western horizon in the evening sky.

But wait… there’s more!

• That comet, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), was discovered in January 2023, and astronomers soon realised it has the potential to become truly dazzling.
• Comet behaviour is hard to predict, so take the following with a pinch of salt, but things still look really promising.
• Current predictions suggest Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be at least as bright as the brightest stars in late September and early October this year.

Jonti Horner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The U.S. government moved closer to banning the video social media app TikTok after the House of Representatives attached the measure to an emergency spending bill on Apr.
• The move could improve the bill’s chances in the Senate, and President Joe Biden has indicated that he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.
• The bill would force ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to either sell its American holdings to a U.S. company or face a ban in the country.
• For one, ByteDance can be required to assist the Chinese Communist Party in gathering intelligence, according to the Chinese National Intelligence Law.
• The fact that China, a country that Americans criticize for its authoritarian practices, bans social media platforms is hardly a reason for the U.S. to do the same.
• Here’s why I think the recent move against TikTok misses the larger point: Americans’ sources of information have declined in quality and the problem goes beyond any one social media platform.

The deeper problem

• But the proposed solution of switching to American ownership of the app ignores an even more fundamental threat.
• The deeper problem is not that the Chinese government can easily manipulate content on the app.
• It is, rather, that people think it is OK to get their news from social media in the first place.
• In other words, the real national security vulnerability is that people have acquiesced to informing themselves through social media.

Media and technology literacy

• Research suggests that it will only be alleviated by inculcating media and technology literacy habits from an early age.
• My colleagues and I have just launched a pilot program to boost digital media literacy with the Boston Mayor’s Youth Council.
• Some of these measures to boost media and technology literacy might not be popular among tech users and tech companies.

The Applied Ethics Center at UMass Boston receives funding from the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Nir Eisikovits serves as the data ethics advisor to Hour25AI, a startup dedicated to reducing digital distractions.

• Working Paper Series
  Federico Maria Ferrara

  Central bank asset purchases
  and auction cycles revisited:
  new evidence from the euro area

  No 2927

  Disclaimer: This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank
  (ECB).

• Abstract
  This study provides new evidence on the relationship between unconventional monetary
  policy and auction cycles in the euro area.
• The findings indicate that Eurosystem?s asset purchase flows mitigate
  yield cycles during auction periods and counteract the amplification impact of market volatility.
• The dampening effect of central bank asset purchases on auction cycles is more sizeable and
  precisely estimated for purchases of securities with medium-term maturities and in jurisdictions
  with relatively lower credit ratings.
• On the other hand, central banks may influence price dynamics in these markets, most notably
  through their asset purchase programmes.
• If so, do central bank asset purchases
  affect bond yield movements around auction dates?
• Auction cycles are present when secondary market yields rise in
  anticipation of a debt auction and fall thereafter, generating an inverted V-shaped pattern around auction
  dates.
• ECB Working Paper Series No 2927

  3

  1

  Introduction

  The impact of central bank asset purchases on government bond markets is a focal point of economic and
  financial research.

• If so,
  do central bank asset purchases shape yield sensitivity around auction dates?
• The paper provides new evidence on the effects of Eurosystem?s asset purchases on secondary market
  yields around public debt auction dates.
• The analysis builds on previous research based on aggregate data
  on central bank asset purchases and a shorter analysis period (van Spronsen and Beetsma 2022).
• Using
  granular data on Eurosystem?s asset purchases offers an opportunity to shed light on the mechanisms linking
  unconventional monetary policy and auction cycles.
• Given this legal constraint, the study
  hypothesises that the effect of asset purchases on 10-year auction cycles is mostly indirect, and goes via price
  spillovers generated by purchases of securities outside the 10-year maturity space.
• Taken together, these results provide new evidence about auction cycles in Europe and contribute to a
  larger literature on the flow effects of central bank asset purchases on bond markets.
• Section 4 offers descriptive evidence about auction cycles in the euro area.
• Auction cycles are defined by the presence of an inverted V-shaped pattern in secondary market yields
  around primary auctions.
• That is, government bond yields rise in the run-up to the date of the auction and
  fall back to their original level after the auction.
• Their limited risk-bearing capacities and inventory management operations are
  seen as key mechanisms driving auction cycles (Beetsma et al.
• ECB Working Paper Series No 2927

  7

  Second, central bank asset purchases can alleviate the cycle by (partly) absorbing the additional supply
  of substitutable instruments in the secondary market (van Spronsen and Beetsma 2022).

• This expectation is
  supported by several analyses on the price effects of central bank bond purchases (D?Amico and King 2013;
  Arrata and Nguyen 2017; De Santis and Holm-Hadulla 2020).
• Empirically, previous research has provided evidence of auction cycles taking place across different jurisdictions.
• (2016) detect auction cycles for government debt in Italy, but not in Germany, during the European
  sovereign debt crisis.
• Research on the impact of central bank asset purchases on yield cycles around auctions is still limited.
• Their paper provides evidence
  that Eurosystem?s asset purchases reduce the presence of auction cycles for euro area government debt.
• Nonetheless, several questions remain open about auction cycles and unconventional monetary policy
  in the euro area.
• Therefore, they
  provide only a partial picture of auction cycles and central bank asset purchases in Europe.
• The use of granular data on central bank asset purchases is especially important in light of the modalities
  of monetary policy implementation of the Eurosystem.
• Altogether, these elements motivate further investigation of the relationship between central bank asset
  purchases and auction cycles in the euro area.
• Taken together, these results confirm that Eurosystem?s asset purchases mitigate yield cycles during auction periods and counteract the amplification impact of market volatility.
• The findings confirm that the flow
  effects of central bank purchases on yield movements around auction dates are driven by lower-rated countries.
• Additional analyses provide evidence for an indirect effect of purchases on auction cycles and highlight
  the presence of substantial heterogeneity across jurisdictions and purchase programmes.
• Flow Effects of Central Bank Asset Purchases on Sovereign Bond
  Prices: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.
• Federico Maria Ferrara
  European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; email: [email protected]

  ? European Central Bank, 2024
  Postal address 60640 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  Telephone
  +49 69 1344 0
  Website
  www.ecb.europa.eu
  All rights reserved.