Experts from the World Health Organization are due to arrive in China this week for a long-anticipated investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, the government said Monday. The experts will arrive on Thursday and meet with Chinese counterparts, the National Health Commission said in a one-sentence statement that gave no other details. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the experts would be traveling to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019. Negotiations for the visit have long been underway.

Israel’s Health Ministry announced on Monday that Israelis over 55 will be able to be vaccinated through their Kupot Cholim beginning on Wednesday. Vaccines for teachers will be available by Tuesday. Those who are interested in getting vaccinated should make an appointment through their Kupah. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu‏‏ said on Sunday that Israel will begin inoculating 170,000 people per day on Monday. יום של זריקות עידוד. צפו

Israel’s Health Ministry on Sunday morning recorded a record number of 993 seriously ill coronavirus patients, the largest number since the start of the pandemic, of whom 231 are ventilated. About 60 fatalities were recorded over the weekend, raising the death toll to 3,645. According to Health Ministry Deputy Director-General Prof. Itamar Grotto: “it was the worst weekend since the pandemic broke out.” “The percentage of coronavirus cases remains high,” Grotto told Radio 103FM on Sunday. “I don’t think there’s been a downward trend yet.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Motzei Shabbos revealed the reason that Pfizer agreed to advance deliveries of their vaccines to Israel, allowing it to continue its lightening fast vaccination drive, the fastest and most efficient in the world. Israel, with its universal public healthcare system and its advanced technological savvy, has the unique advantage of having all its citizens’ medical data digitally stored in a centralized storage bank. Israel’s four Kupot Cholim who are in fierce competition with each other for Israelis’ loyalty, encouraging them to provide top-quality care, are now competing with each other to efficiently provide vaccines as swiftly as possible.

Thessaloniki resident Zana Santicario-Satsolgou, a 98-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, was the first nursing home resident of the northern port city to be vaccinated for the coronavirus last week, Greek media reported. Santicario-Satsoglou, who has resided at Thessaloniki’s Jewish Saul Modiano Old Age Home since her husband’s death over ten years ago, was one of the few Greek Jews to survive the Holocaust. She was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 18 and by the time the war was over she was the only member of her family still alive. Unlike most Greek Jews, Santicario-Satsolgou eventually returned to Greece, settling in her home city of Thessaloniki.

Four cases of the South African coronavirus mutation were found in Israel, the Health Ministry reported on Motzei Shabbos. On Friday, the ministry said that the Infectious Diseases Research Lab at Sheba Medical Center was evaluating the test results of 15 Israelis who returned to Israel from South Africa in recent days and tested positive for the coronavirus as well as five people infected by them. The ministry also reported on Friday that another 117 cases of the British mutation were discovered in Israel, increasing the total number of cases to 147. The coronavirus cabinet voted on Thursday night that all Israelis returning from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia or Lesotho will have to undergo mandatory quarantine in a state-run coronavirus hotel for ten to 14 days. Dr.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Friday banned Iran from importing American Pfizer-BioNTech and Britain’s AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines, a reflection of mistrust toward the West. In a televised speech, he said the import of American and British vaccines were “forbidden,” referring to the surging death tolls from the virus in both countries. ”I really do not trust,” them, Khamenei said of those nations. “Sometimes they want to test” their vaccines on other countries, adding, “I am not optimistic (about) France,” either. Iran has struggled to stem the worst virus outbreak in the Middle East. Khamenei’s statement reflects decades of tense relations between Iran and the West which have not abated in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s presidency.

New research suggests Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine can protect against a mutation found in the two more-contagious variants of the coronavirus that have erupted in Britain and South Africa. The study was preliminary and did not look at the two other major vaccines being used in the West — Moderna’s and AstraZeneca’s. But it was reassuring, given questions of whether the virus could mutate to defeat the shots on which the world has pinned its hopes. “There’s no reason to think the vaccines won’t work just as well on these strains,” said Dr. Frederic Bushman of the University of Pennsylvania, who tracks how the virus mutates. The mutated version circulating in Britain has also been detected in the U.S. and numerous other countries.

London’s mayor declared the capital’s COVID-19 situation to be critical Friday, reflecting deteriorating conditions for beleaguered hospitals, as the country recorded its highest daily death toll in the pandemic. The grim news that another 1,325 people had died within 28 days of a positive test came hours after the U.K regulator authorized a third vaccine for emergency use. The figure brings Britain’s official death toll from the coronavirus to 79,833, the highest in Europe. Not all the deaths announced by the government on Friday occurred on the same day. London Mayor Sadiq Khan declared a “major incident,″ as the rapid spread of the virus pushed hospitals to breaking point, with the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients up 27% in the week to Jan. 6.

In the Rosh Yeshivah’s weekly sicha on Tuesday evening, HaGaon HaRav Gershon Edelstein addressed the soaring infection rate in Israel. “The coronavirus situation had already vastly improved because we were careful,” the Rosh Yeshivah said. “But then people began to make light of it and now we have thousands of cholim. This all comes from being mezalzel the health regulations.” “This not just a matter concerning one’s own self. If [someone is not careful], he also infects and harms others – and he’s a rodeif.” “The tzibur must be stringent in adhering one hundred percent to health regulations, according to the known instructions of the doctors, to be careful and not to harm others.