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July 12, 2020 at 8:53 pm
Assumptions of herd immunity to the coronavirus as more people get infected may be wrong, according to a worrying new study by British researchers, finding that people who recover from COVID-19 tend to lose their immunity within several months.
A team from King’s College in London has found that the amount of antibodies in recovered patients’ blood was significantly down after three months, meaning they could be vulnerable to reinfection, The Guardian reports.
That means people could catch the virus year after year, like the common cold. If confirmed by more research, it would mean that hopes for getting rid of the virus now depend on the development of an effective and safe vaccine.
Read more at Times of Israel.
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July 12, 2020 at 8:52 pm
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made clear on Sunday that she wants schools to reopen fully for most students for the 2020-21 academic year, even as covid-19 infection rates are soaring in some parts of the country and some superintendents say it is impossible for them to do that.
DeVos made her latest statement about what schools should do on CNN’s “State of the Union.” In the interview with journalist Dana Bash, DeVos doubled down on calls she made last week for schools to reopen. “Kids need to be in school,” she said. “They need to be learning, they need to be moving ahead. And we can’t – we cannot be paralyzed and not allow that or not be intent on that happening.”
DeVos said nothing, however, about what school superintendents hav...
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July 12, 2020 at 8:12 pm
Florida recorded more than 15,000 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the highest single-day increase any state has experienced during the pandemic, officials reported.
Florida’s Department of Health confirmed 15,299 new coronavirus cases in Florida residents inside the state, bringing the state’s total to 269,811 cases.
The state also reported 45 new deaths in Florida residents, adding up to a total of 4,242 fatalities. The new cases and deaths were “reported since yesterday,” according to the website.
Read more at The Hill.
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July 12, 2020 at 3:12 pm
(CNN) Several sailors were injured after an explosion on board a ship at the US Naval Base in San Diego, according to the San Diego Fire Department (SDFD).
The sailors are being treated for a variety of injuries after the explosion on the USS Bonhomme Richard, according to SDFD's official Twitter account.
Firefighters are battling a three-alarm fire on the ship, Muñoz said. Several different agencies are working to fight the blaze. Read more at CNN
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July 12, 2020 at 2:59 pm
The Jewish community in Germany is in shock after unknown individuals vandalized and desecrated dozens of gravestones in the ancient Jewish cemetery in the city of Worms, leaving many of the grave markers shattered.
Thousands of Jewish worshipers visit the Jewish cemetery every year, considered one of the oldest in Europe. Among the desecrated tombs was also the tomb of the Maharam of Rothenburg who served as one of the chief Ashkenazi rabbis in the Middle Ages (1220-1293).Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chairman of the European Jewish Association, and the Rabbinical Center of Europe, condemned the ongoing rise of anti-Semitism across the continent.
"There is no doubt that the corona crisis has brought with it a sharp rise in antisemitic discourse on the Internet, and now that most of the closu...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:55 pm
The Likud party continues to lose support, according to new polls, as the government’s approval rating plummets amid an ongoing economic crisis sparked by attempts to rein in the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a new poll conducted by Prof. Camil Fuchs and published by Channel 13 Sunday evening, 75% of respondents say the government led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not handled the economic crisis well, compared to just 16% who approved of the government’s handling of the crisis.
The government got slightly better marks on its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with 61% of respondents disapproving of how the government has handled the pandemic, compared to 34% who were either somewhat or fully satisfied with the government’s performance.
In A...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:54 pm
Lebanese politician Ahmed Fatfat said in a July 4 interview on MTV (Lebanon) that all the militias in his country, first and foremost Hezbollah, should be dismantled in accordance with the Taif Agreement and the Lebanese constitution.
He said that, in his view, Hizbullah has carried out acts of terrorism, is Lebanon’s main problem and is preventing any reforms from taking place.
Furthermore, he said, Hezbollah is not a legitimate political party; that it is occupying Lebanon and its political decision-making process; that it believes in Iran’s Rule of Jurisprudence, rather than the Lebanese Constitution; and that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is effectively the person ruling Lebanon.
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July 12, 2020 at 2:50 pm
Herd immunity wasn’t a factor in decreasing the number of cases of coronavirus in New York City, a top city doctor said Friday.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Dr. Jay Varma attributed the city’s good numbers to everything but herd immunity — including social distancing, good hygiene and an increase in testing and tracing.
“I think that herd immunity is a very unlikely explanation for this because we know the vast major of New Yorkers actually weren’t infected, so we’re not nearly at a level where we would expect that immunity would play a major role in decreasing transmission,” Varma, the city’s senior adviser for public health, said at the mayor’s daily press briefing.
“There’s still far too many New Yorkers that are susceptib...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:48 pm
Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Sunday the U.S. can reverse course and control the latest outbreaks of the coronavirus in just a few weeks if people follow social distancing and hygiene guidelines to prevent the spread of the potentially fatal virus.
“Together we can turn this thing around in just two to three weeks if everyone does their part, more studies coming out showing the effectiveness of face coverings,” Adams said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that the disease course is about two to three weeks.
“Just as we've seen cases skyrocket, we can turn this thing around in two to three weeks if we can get a critical mass of people wearing face coverings, practicing at least 6 feet of social distance, doing the th...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:46 pm
MARYLAND — The state has reported a record number of coronavirus test results in the last 24 hours, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan reported Sunday morning. In the last day, state health officials said 21,140 results were received.
"Maryland has now surpassed 800,000 COVID-19 tests, with a record 21,140 tests reported in the last 24 hours," Hogan said Sunday morning.
Statewide 73,109 people have tested positive for the virus, the Maryland Department of Health reported Sunday, an increase of 642 confirmed cases since the previous day. That is the largest day-to-day increase this month, according to a Patch analysis of the data.
After staff members tested positive for the virus, multiple restaurants in Ocean City closed over the weekend. Blu Crabhouse and Raw Bar, Fish Tal...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:45 pm
The U.S.'s top coronavirus testing official, Adm. Brett Giroir, said Sunday that infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci is “not 100 percent right” because he looks at the coronavirus pandemic from “a very narrow public health point of view.”
Chuck Todd of NBC's “Meet the Press” asked the White House testing czar about a Washington Post report that cited an official saying Fauci has argued for parts of the country with surges to shut down without buy-in from the rest of the White House task force.
“I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right, and he also doesn't necessarily — he admits that — have the whole national interest in mind,” Giroir said. “He...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:14 pm
ANNAPOLIS, MD — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan appeared on "Meet the Press" Sunday to talk about the state of the coronavirus pandemic and the future of the Republican party. The second-term Republican governor said he is frustrated with the presidential choices voters have in November.
Moderator Chuck Todd asked Hogan if President Donald Trump wins re-election, is there room for a moderate like Hogan in the Republican party.
Lots of people nationwide are frustrated with divisiveness and dysfunction in Washington, D.C., Hogan said.
"Both parties are going to be re-examining about what the future looks like. I don't know what the future holds in November, but I know that the Republican party is going to be looking at what happens after President Trump, whether that's in ...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:10 pm
Eli Rozenberg, a 30-year-old immigrant to Israel from the United States, is the person interested in purchasing El Al Israel Airlines, Globes reported on Sunday.
According to the report, the prospective buyer is the son of businessman Ken Rozenberg, owner of one of the largest chains of nursing homes in the U.S. and founder and CEO of Centers Health Care.
His son, who immigrated to Israel a few years ago, is in talks with the controlling stakeholder in the airline. Sources told Globes that he is not concerned about El Al’s economic crisis, due most recently to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced it to shut down its regular services.
However, according to the report, it is not clear whether the airline’s parent company, Knafaim, which owns the controlling shares, will be w...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:09 pm
Iranian investigators have blamed the downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet over the capital Tehran earlier this year on the misalignment of an air defense unit’s radar system, a report said Saturday.
All 176 passengers were killed in the Jan. 8 incident, which sparked widespread public anger after Iranian authorities took days to admit that its forces had fired an antiaircraft missile at the Boeing 737-800 shortly after takeoff from Imam Khomeini International Airport.
Most of the dead were Iranian. Many were students, and for days after the shoot-down, their campuses became a stage for the grief and rage of fellow young Iranians.
The report from Iran’s civil aviation authority built on earlier findings that blamed the human error of a missile operator who had 10 seconds to ...
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July 12, 2020 at 2:07 pm
Gov. Andrew Cuomo predicted New York will see another bump in coronavirus cases because of the pandemic’s surge in many southern and western states — and admitted the quarantine he imposed on visitors from hotspot areas will be unable to stop it.
“Look, we’re doing everything we can. The quarantine, we have an enforcement mechanism. But, you know, how do you catch somebody driving in, right? I mean, it’s very very difficult, it’s trying to catch water in a screen,” Cuomo said Friday on WAMC radio.
Cuomo imposed a travel advisory on 19 states with rising COVID-19 infections — including California, Florida and Texas — that requires visitors from these areas to quarantine for 14 days upon entering New York.
“You’re going to ...
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July 12, 2020 at 1:58 pm
Former U.N. Ambassador to the United States and ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley characterized the future of New York City as “scary” and called Mayor Bill De Blasio’s painting of “Black Lives Matter” in front of Trump Tower as “petty,” “childish” and “immature.”
Haley, who appeared on Newsmax TV on Friday, said De Blasio’s Thursday photo opportunity where he grabbed a paint roller to help emblazon Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan with the words “Black Lives Matter” does nothing to change substance.
“The future of New York City is scary right now,” Haley said on “Spicer & Co.”
“I mean you can go and De Blasio has been a total embarrassment through this whole thing. Th...
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July 12, 2020 at 1:53 pm
United Hatzalah volunteer EMTs treated three people after an apartment fire erupted on Tavor Street in Tevaria.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Aharon Ovadia who was one of the first responders at the scene relayed: "Three people including a woman who's as pregnant were lightly injured in the fire which erupted in one apartment and caused a pillar of smoke to engulf much of the building. The three people injured all suffered from light smoke inhalation. United Hatzalah's Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit (PCRU) was dispatched to the scene and helped to stabilize 15 residents of the building who were all suffering emotional or psychological stress reactions following the incident."
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July 12, 2020 at 10:30 am
For the first time in in nearly 20 years 7-Eleven did not offer free Slurpees on Saturday, July 11, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Gathering nine million of our closest friends in stores on one day just didn’t feel right,” said Marissa Jarratt, 7-Eleven’s chief marketing officer.
Instead, the company will offer the nearly 33 million users who have the 7-Eleven membership app installed on their devices as of July 1, a free medium Slurpee at any time this month.
Read more at The Hill.
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July 12, 2020 at 9:27 am
The borders of Israel have been closed to foreigners since the beginning of the Corona crisis. As has been chronicled extensively on our site, there have been only a few exceptions to this ban. At the same time, there are many other circumstances which, until now, have not been acceptable reasons for permission to enter the country. Chaim V’Chessed has worked valiantly to obtain permission for people with a variety of true humanitarian needs. At times, our efforts have been successful; at other times – less so.
After exhaustive efforts on the part of many officials, notably the staff of MK Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, we are pleased to announce that an updated list of exceptions has just been issued by the Interior Ministry.
New additions to the exceptions list i...
