The blood services of Magen David Adom and the Health Ministry on Friday afternoon received an inquiry from Assuta Ashdod Hospital about the delivery of plasma units containing the coronavirus antibodies to a 29-year-old corona patient who was in serious condition.
The donor, a woman from Jerusalem who recovered from the coronavirus, was located by MDA and the health ministry and she was driven to MDA’s blood service center before Shabbat. A special team was waiting for her and transferred the plasma units to the laboratories to perform the required tests and prepare them for transfusion. The blood units were then delivered to Assuta Ashdod and given to the patient Friday night.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Israel rose to 101 late Saturday night, and the overall number of patients in Israel has reached 10,743, with 175 listed in serious condition, 129 of them on ventilating machines. The good news is, 1,341 have recovered from the virus and have been released from hospitals.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Saturday afternoon that he plans to close NYC schools for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. “This is a public health decision — and not an easy one,” the mayor tweeted. “But it’s the right one. The social distancing strategies have been working, and we cannot risk a resurgence of the virus.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that 783 people had died of the coronavirus in New York State on Friday, raising the state’s death toll to 8,627. The governor quoted Winston Churchill who said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
“I know we all want things to go back to normal,” the governor tweeted. “But the worst thing that can happen is that we make a misstep and we let our emotions get ahead of logic and facts, and we go through this all over again.” He added, “When and how we reopen is both a public health and economic question. We must avoid a second wave of infection.”
With 5,699 new coronavirus cases and 1,086 new deaths reported, the United States continues to be the worst hit country on the planet. 19,833 Americans have died so far and 508,575 have been infected.
The numbers are surging in Spain, Italy, France and Germany, where about half a million citizens have been infected and about 42,000 died.
To date, the world has seen 1,741,818 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 106,694 deaths and 393,456 recovered.