Court rules alleged child sex abuser Leifer fit to be extradited for trial

https://www.timesofisrael.com/court-rules-alleged-pedophile-malka-leifer-fit-to-be-extradited-for-trial/

Judge says former school principal feigned mental illness to avoid facing 74 counts of child sex abuse in Australia; defense plans appeal after July 20 extradition hearing

In a major ruling, the Jerusalem District Court has determined that alleged serial pedophile Malka Leifer is mentally fit for extradition to Australia to stand trial on charges of 74 counts of child sex abuse.

The decision handed down by Judge Chana Miriam Lomp to reject Leifer’s claims that she was unfit to stand trial seemingly caps a years-long struggle by Leifer’s alleged victims and Australian authorities to see her returned to face justice. 

“This abusive woman has been exploiting Israeli courts for 6 years! Intentionally creating obstacles, endless vexatious arguments – only lengthening our ongoing trauma!” said one of Leifer’s alleged victims, Dassi Erlich, in a statement immediately after the ruling. “Too many emotions to process!!! This is huge!”

The world sacrificed its elderly in the race to protect hospitals. The result was a catastrophe in care homes

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/26/world/elderly-care-homes-coronavirus-intl/index.html

 

By February 25, the World Health Organization said the virus had already killed thousands in China and was spreading through northern Italy, but at the time there were just 13 confirmed cases and no deaths in the UK. While the government ordered hospitals to prepare for an influx of patients, its advice to some of the country's most vulnerable people -- elderly residents of care or nursing homes -- was that they were "very unlikely" to be infected.

That guidance would remain in place over the next two-and-a-half weeks, as the number of coronavirus cases in the UK exploded. By the time the advice was withdrawn on March 13 and replaced with new guidance, there were 594 confirmed cases, and it was too late.

 

 Data published on LTCcovid shows that more than half of all coronavirus deaths in nations including Belgium, France, Ireland, Canada and Norway occurred in care homes or among care home residents in all settings. In the US, data collated by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) from 35 states and included in the LSE report showed that care home residents accounted for 30,130​, or at least 34.6%​, of the more than 87,000 coronavirus deaths ​recorded as of May 15. Care home residents are also overrepresented in ​some countries with relatively few deaths, accounting for 26 out of ​the first 99 deaths documented in Australia, or more than a quarter of all fatalities through May 18.

 

Sweden has repeatedly defended its controversial decision to remain relatively permissive in its restrictions on movement, but Health Minister Lena Hallengren admitted a "big failure" to protect the elderly and said care homes were now of the utmost importance, according to Swedish media. There had been 1,661 coronavirus deaths among care home residents out of 3,395 total coronavirus deaths in Sweden by May 14, or 49%, according to LTCcovid's report.

 

 

Hong Kong says it has not had a single infection in a care home, and only four deaths and just over 1,000 cases in total. In Singapore, just two of 18 deaths have taken place among care home residents.

"There's been a lot of focus in hospitals and focus on community transmission, but not in care homes. And I think that reflects the low status that the care sector has in many countries," said Comas-Herrera.

The authors of the JAMA report on Seattle write that: "Although many prefer not to think about nursing homes, they are a critical safety net for frail older adults and part of the fabric of our society."

 

Peru seemed to do everything right. So how did it become a Covid-19 hotspot?

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/25/americas/peru-covid-hotspot-why-intl/index.html

The deep inequality in Peru is one reason, according to Dr. Elmer Huerta, a Peruvian doctor and contributor to CNN en Español. "What I have learned is that this virus lays bare the socio-economic conditions of a place," he said.

Many of Peru's poor have no choice but to venture outside their homes for work, food or even banking transactions.

"You're supposed to avoid human contact in a society where one can't stay at home," Huerta said.

People have also ended up crowding at banks as they attempted to access coronavirus relief funds.

The government's stimulus package to help millions of Peru's most vulnerable families was a good idea, but its distribution was poorly designed, said Kristian Lopez Vargas, a Peruvian economist and assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

New Evidence Suggests COVID-19 Patients On Ventilators Usually Survive

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/15/856768020/new-evidence-suggests-covid-19-patients-on-ventilators-usually-survive

COVID-19 has given ventilators an undeservedly bad reputation, says Dr. Colin Cooke, an associate professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary and critical care at the University of Michigan.

"It's always disheartening to know that some people are out there saying if you end up on a ventilator it's a death sentence, which is not what we are experiencing — and I don't think it's what the data are showing," Cooke says.

Early reports from China, the United Kingdom and Seattle found mortality rates as high as 90% among patients on ventilators. And more recently, a study of some New York hospitals seemed to show a mortality rate of 88%.

But Cooke and others say the New York figure was misleading because the analysis included only patients who had either died or been discharged. "So folks who were actually in the midst of fighting their illness were not being included in the statistic of patients who were still alive," he says.

About a quarter of Covid-19 patients put on ventilators in New York's largest health system died, study finds

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/health/coronavirus-ventilator-patients-die/index.html

 About a quarter of coronavirus patients who needed ventilators to help them breathe died within the first few weeks of treatment, a study of New York's largest health system showed.

It found that, overall, about 20% of Covid-19 patients treated at Northwell Health died, and 25% of those placed on ventilators died. A ventilator is a device that forces air into the lungs of patients who cannot breathe on their own because of severe pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Other, smaller reports have indicated that patients who need ventilation are unlikely to survive.

Will Malka Leifer stand trial? Court to decide today

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/court-to-decide-whether-malka-leifer-fit-for-trial-629321

Should Jerusalem District Court rule Leifer is fit for trial after six years of legal battles, defense lawyers are likely to appeal to Supreme Court.

 

As stark 100,000 deaths landmark looms, Trump pursues his political obsessions

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/trump-covid-death-toll/index.html

 Sometime in the next few days, the 100,000th American will succumb to Covid-19 in a pandemic that President Donald Trump once predicted would just "miraculously" disappear.

Yet despite, and perhaps because of, his earlier cavalier attitude, Trump spent the long holiday weekend bemoaning everything but the tragic roll call of death -- while also finding time to claim he got "great reviews" for handling the crisis.

And he indulged his preoccupations on his tax returns, Hillary Clinton, Fox News, slanders against MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, the Russia investigation, Joe Biden's mental health, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, mail-in voting in November and highlighted dangerous and unproven Covid-19 therapies promoted on conservative media he has tested himself.

After three years of Trump deliberately trampling the normal codes of presidential behavior -- partly to show supporters he remains an anti-elite outsider, none of this is surprising.

But that doesn't mean it isn't jarring, as the most wrenching moment so far approaches in the nation's battle against a pandemic that while ebbing in terms of total deaths is trending up in 18 states, is steady in 22 and easing in 10 more. More than 98,000 people in the US have now died from the coronavirus and more than 1.6 million have been infected. More than 30 million Americans have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate is approaching Great Depression levels.

 

There was little evidence of a deeper meaning to his presidency at this stage than personal and political grievances. Also missing is a more sweeping policy framework for a potential second Trump term. And other than a relentless push to support an aggressive opening of the country, for instance in a new demand for schools to open, Trump seems far less interested in how the task can be accomplished safely -- other than retweeting CDC hand washing advice -- than his boiling political feuds.

 

 

A prophet in his own city: Jacob Kornbluh, the Hasidic reporter standing up for social-distancing

https://forward.com/life/447274/a-prophet-in-his-own-city-jacob-kornbluh/

A group of about a hundred Hasidic men and boys milled about on a dark street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park, a gleam of fire in the distance. Women watched from balconies above the street at the crowd that had gathered — in violation of New York City’s social-distancing guidelines — to celebrate the minor Jewish holiday Lag B’Omer.

Jacob Kornbluh, a reporter for Jewish Insider who is himself Hasidic and lives in the neighborhood, was passing the crowd on his way home when a man recognized him — and started screaming “Muser, muser!” Traitor.

 

Since the start of the pandemic, Kornbluh has been tweeting to his 17,000 followers about coronavirus developments in Boro Park, and reporting violations when necessary — even as he himself was battling the virus at home.

Don’t fall for conspiracy about Dr. Anthony Fauci, hydroxychloroquine

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/06/blog-posting/dont-fall-conspiracy-about-dr-anthony-fauci-hydrox/

A widely shared conspiracy theory on Facebook alleges that Dr. Anthony Fauci is knowingly advocating against a treatment for the novel coronavirus. 

 

First: The article relies on a 2005 study about the effect of chloroquine on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, more commonly called SARS. Chloroquine is chemically similar to hydroxychloroquine, but it is a different drug and is primarily used to treat malaria. Both drugs pose risks for people with heart problems.

The 2005 study found that chloroquine — not hydroxychloroquine — was "effective in inhibiting the infection and spread of SARS CoV," the official name for SARS. The research was conducted in "cell culture conditions," meaning the drug was not administered to actual SARS patients. The authors wrote that more research was needed on how the drug interacts with SARS in animal test subjects.

As retail chains flourish, NY’s Orthodox small business owners protest closures

https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-retail-chains-flourish-nys-orthodox-small-business-owners-protest-closures/

Racks of breezy spring maxi-dresses and colorful long-sleeve tops hang inside Sareka on Saddle, freshly unwrapped and never tried on. The women’s modest clothing shop has been shuttered since March, when the state mandated all non-essential businesses closed to help stem the spread of COVID-19. Now, nearly three months later, Deena Bechhofer and her parents are beginning to worry. They jointly own the shop in Airmont, adjacent to Monsey, New York, a heavily ultra-Orthodox area. If they don’t start selling the inventory it will mean a significant loss next quarter. 

 

On a Scottish Isle, Nursing Home Deaths Expose a Covid-19 Scandal

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/europe/coronavirus-uk-nursing-homes.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

The virus has ravaged nursing homes across Europe and the United States. But the death toll in British homes — 14,000, official figures say, with thousands more dying as an indirect result of the virus — is becoming a defining scandal of the pandemic for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

 

Kiryas Joel school ordered to close after 'hundreds' of students found in building

https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2020/05/22/kiryas-joel-school-ordered-close/5245425002/

Orange County officials say they ordered a Kiryas Joel school to close on Thursday after discovering “hundreds” of boys in the building in violation of a state mandate in March that closed all schools in New York and that remains in effect.

The county Health Department served the cease-and-desist order after officials visited the school one day earlier, accompanied by state troopers, and “found what appeared to be hundreds of students inside, not wearing personal protective equipment, not social distancing, and plainly in violation of the Governor’s Executive Orders,” the county announced in a statement.

The school is part of the United Talmudical Academy, the largest of three Hasidic school systems serving roughly 14,500 children in and around Kiryas Joel.

 

WHO Pauses Hydroxychloroquine Trial Amid Safety Concerns Day After Trump Says He Stopped Taking Controversial Medicine

https://www.newsweek.com/who-pauses-hydroxychloroquine-trial-amid-safety-concerns-day-after-donald-trump-says-he-stopped-1506366

The World Health Organization announced Monday that it was pausing an ongoing trial of how hydroxychloroquine impacts hospitalized COVID-19 patients over safety concerns of the anti-malaria drug—medicine that President Donald Trump said he was taking for at least two weeks.
A "temporary pause" of the WHO's hydroxychloroquine trial was instituted while "safety data is reviewed," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

 

The trial halt comes the day after Trump revealed in an interview with Sinclair Broadcasting that he was no longer taking the unproven coronavirus treatment and prevention method that health experts and officials—including within the Trump administration—have warned not to take outside hospital or clinical trial settings because of its potentially deadly side effects.

Memorial Day