With vaccination against COVID-19 in full swing, social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter say they’ve stepped up their fight against misinformation that aims to undermine trust in the vaccines. But problems abound. For years, the same platforms have allowed anti-vaccination propaganda to flourish, making it difficult to stamp out such sentiments now. And their efforts to weed out other types of COVID-19 misinformation — often with fact-checks, informational labels and other restrained measures, has been woefully slow. Twitter, for instance, announced this month that it will remove dangerous falsehoods about vaccines, much the same way it’s done for other COVID-related conspiracy theories and misinformation.

About a hundred thousand Israelis who were vaccinated with the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine failed to return for the second dose, Israeli media reported on Motzei Shabbos. Health Ministry officials told Channel 12 News that they believe some Israelis failed to get the second dose due to suffering side effects from the first dose and others were swayed by “fake news” about the vaccines. The report said that some medical workers were among those who failed to receive the second vaccine dose but at a lower rate than the general population. Since well over 5.1 million Israelis have been vaccinated, the 100,000 Israelis who failed to show up for their second shots comprise only 2% of those vaccinated. Over 4.1 million Israelis have received both vaccine doses.

Syrian interrogators requested that the Kiryat Sefer woman who crossed the border into Syria last month lead them to an IDF outpost in order to capture Israeli soldiers but she refused, Israeli media reported on Sunday. The woman was imprisoned in a Damascus jail and held for 16 days. The Nazareth Magistrate’s Court filed an indictment against the 25-year-old woman a week ago but a gag order was placed on the details. The court lifted the order on some of the details on Motzei Shabbos, allowed part of the indictment to be published. The woman decided to cross into Syria in January and did research online on which village was closest to the border. The indictment stated that “the defendant decided to cross the border and move to Syria for a period of time.

An Israeli study found coronavirus antibodies in the milk of nursing mothers who had been vaccinated against the coronavirus. The small study, carried out by Tel Aviv University and Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, evaluated the breastmilk of ten nursing mothers, all of whom are medical employees at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. All the milk samples contained coronavirus antibodies after the mothers were vaccinated with the first dose and an increase in antibody levels a week after they were vaccinated with the second dose. Prof. Ariel Many, one of the heads of the study, told Kan News that the results show the importance of vaccinating nursing mothers so that they can provide protection to their babies. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

As Israel’s virus infection rate and number of serious cases continue to decrease, the Health Ministry is considering ending the requirement to wear masks outdoors from next month, according to a Channel 12 News report on Sunday night. Late Sunday night, the government made a decision to allow flights from all worldwide destinations in order to facilitate the return of Israelis who want to vote in the March 23 elections. Until now, only flights from New York, Paris and Frankfurt were allowed.

A Florida correctional officer polled his colleagues earlier this year in a private Facebook group: “Will you take the COVID-19 vaccine if offered?” The answer from more than half: “Hell no.” Only 40 of the 475 respondents said yes. In Massachusetts, more than half the people employed by the Department of Correction declined to be immunized. A statewide survey in California showed that half of all correction employees will wait to be vaccinated. In Rhode Island, prison staff have refused the vaccine at higher rates than the incarcerated, according to medical director Dr. Justin Berk. And in Iowa, early polling among employees showed a little more than half the staff said they’d get vaccinated.

There was no reason to celebrate on Rachel Van Lear’s anniversary. The same day a global pandemic was declared, she developed symptoms of COVID-19. A year later, she’s still waiting for them to disappear. And for experts to come up with some answers. The Texas woman is one of thousands of self-described long-haulers, patients with symptoms that linger or develop out of the blue months after they first became infected with the coronavirus. Hers first arrived on March 11, 2020. The condition affects an uncertain number of survivors in a baffling variety of ways. “We’re faced with a mystery,” said Dr. Francis Collins, chief of the National Institutes of Health. Is it a condition unique to COVID-19, or just a variation of the syndrome that can occur after other infections?

Israeli health officials believe that the current coronavirus situation in the country is the “most hopeful it’s been since the start of the pandemic,” Channel 13 News reported. The infection rate has been on a steady decline in recent weeks as well as the number of seriously ill patients, with 644 seriously ill patients reported on Sunday, of whom 191 are ventilated. The positivity test rate has dropped to 2.9%. Israel’s reproduction or R rate (the number of people each carrier infects) has dropped to 0.78, the lowest rate in five months. The death toll has increased to 5,988.

An Israeli anti-vaxxer group called Anshei Emet filed a suit against Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier this month, claiming that Israel’s vaccination policies are akin to “crimes against humanity” according to the Nuremberg Code, The Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday. “It is our intention to present to you and detail how in the State of Israel this year, the Government of Israel with its ministers and its Knesset members, heads of cities, and additional senior factors, violate the Nuremberg Code in an unlawful manner, blatant and extreme,” the group stated.

After weeks of a life and death battle, the condition of three new mothers hospitalized in Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah after contracting the coronavirus has considerably improved. The three women had all been in critical condition after contracting COVID-19 while pregnant. Their babies were delivered by emergency C-section and they were ventilated and attached to ECMO machines. Their condition has improved dramatically and they have been removed from their respirators and ECMO machines and transferred from the ICU to an internal ward. In the coming days, they will be transferred to a rehabilitation center, from where they will eventually return home.