As Israel’s vaccination drive slows down in recent days, the Health Ministry announced on Wednesday that everyone over age 16 can be vaccinated beginning on Thursday. Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Chezy Levy told Ynet on Wednesday that the decision was made due to the recent decline in people showing up to be vaccinated, leaving vaccination centers almost empty. Coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash said on Wednesday that hundreds of vaccine doses had to be discarded due to the low turnout since they cannot be stored for long once they have been opened. Additionally, there has been an alarming rise in the number of seriously ill patients in younger age groups, a result of the British variant.

England has begun house-by-house COVID-19 testing in some communities as authorities try to snuff out a new variant of the coronavirus before it spreads widely and undermines a nationwide vaccination program. Authorities want to reach the 80,000 residents of eight areas where the variant, first identified in South Africa, is known to be spreading because a handful of cases have been detected among people who have had no contact with the country or anyone who traveled there. Officials are dispatching home testing kits and mobile testing units in an effort to reach every resident of those communities. It is “critical” for everyone in these areas to stay at home unless travel is absolutely essential, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.

In the wake of the high virus morbidity in Israel and the resulting overcrowded coronavirus wards in hospitals nationwide, at least 15 ambulances transporting seriously ill virus patients were forced to wait outside hospitals for almost two hours before gaining admittance on Tuesday night. Ambulances were waiting outside Ichilov and Assaf HaRofeh Hospitals in the Tel Aviv area as well as Kaplan Medical Center in Rechovot. “If Israel ends the lockdown by Sunday, the significance of that is clear,” a senior Magen David Adom told Army Radio on Wednesday. “More people will require medical services and the situation will grow even worse.” “There is no real difference in the number of seriously ill patients today than prior to entering the lockdown, said Dr.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein held a live press conference on Tuesday night warning of lifting the nationwide lockdown too soon. Currently, the lockdown is set to expire on Friday morning but the prime minister and senior health officials are recommending that it be extended through Sunday night in the wake of the still-high morbidity rate and the high number of seriously ill patients. Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz has been opposing Netanyahu and senior health officials on the issue, insisting that restrictions begin to be lifted. Netanyahu said that if the lockdown is extended by three days, then another 200,000 people will have received their second vaccine doses and be protected against the virus.

World Health Organization investigators on Wednesday visited a research center in the Chinese city of Wuhan that has been the subject of speculation about the origins of the coronavirus, with one member saying they’d intended to meet key staff and press them on critical issues. The WHO team’s visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a highlight of their mission to gather data and search for clues as to where the virus originated and how it spread. “We’re looking forward to meeting with all the key people here and asking all the important questions that need to be asked,” zoologist and team member Peter Daszak said, according to footage run by Japanese broadcaster TBS.

After two months of daily treks to the hospital, Reuven Natan Levi, a resident of Beitar Illit, never imagined he would go home with empty hands. But sadly, his fifth child Yair became Israel’s youngest coronavirus victim on Motzei Shabbos when he passed away at only two-months-old. Yair was born with the rare autoimmune disorder, Eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA), and required complex surgery after birth but what ultimately took his life was the coronavirus. “Despite the complexity of his illness, he could have lived with it,” Levi told Mynet Jerusalem. “But the coronavirus was deadly for him due to his medical background. The coronavirus destroyed every healthy part of him. We saw him deteriorate day after day.

Russian scientists say the country’s Sputnik V vaccine appears safe and effective against COVID-19, according to early results of an advanced study published in a British medical journal. The news is a boost for the shot that is increasingly being purchased by nations around the world who are desperate to stop the devastation caused by the pandemic. Researchers say based on their trial, which involved about 20,000 people in Russia last fall, the vaccine is about 91% effective and that the shot also appeared to prevent people from becoming severely ill with COVID-19. The study was published online Tuesday in the journal, Lancet.

Israel, along with the rest of the world, will have to learn to live with the coronavirus for a long time, a senior Israeli health official said, according to a Channel 13 News report on Monday. The grim prediction is due to the new more contagious coronavirus mutations spreading throughout the world and the fact that herd immunity cannot be achieved without vaccinating children under the age of 16, which currently cannot be carried out until lengthy trials are completed. Health officials have said in the past that 60-70% of the population must be immune to the virus in order to achieve herd immunity but that number has changed due to the more infectious variants.

A 15-month-old born to Chabad residents of Tzfat after 17 years of waiting is hospitalized in serious condition and has been sedated and ventilated after contracting the coronavirus. The toddler tested positive for the coronavirus last week and after her condition deteriorated, she was hospitalized on Friday in serious condition. On Sunday, she suffered a further deterioration in her condition and she was sedated and ventilated. The public is asked to urgently daven for the refuah of Ayala bas Chana Natalie Chantelle b’toch sha’ar cholei Yisrael. On Motzei Shabbos, a two-month-old baby from a family in Beitar that was born with medical issues and subsequently contracted the coronavirus passed away. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

As a hospice nurse, Antonio Espinoza worked to ease people’s passage into death. Just 36 years old, it seemed unlikely he soon would be on that journey. But when the unpredictable coronavirus hit Espinoza, he spiraled from fever to chills to labored breathing that sent him to a Southern California hospital, where he died Monday, a little more than a week after being admitted. Espinoza is among the latest to succumb in what has become California’s deadliest surge. An average of 544 people died every day in the last week, and on Saturday the state reached the grim milestone of 40,000 deaths overall, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. In barely a year since the virus was first detected in the state, 1 in 1,000 Californians have died from it.