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Israel’s national coronavirus czar on Saturday called for the country to begin making preparations to eventually administer fourth doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
“Given that that the virus is here and will continue to be here, we also need to prepare for a fourth injection,” Salman Zarka told Kan public radio.
He did not specify when fourth vaccine shots could eventually be administered. Zarka also said that the next booster shot may be modified to better protect against new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, such as the highly infectious Delta strain. “This is our life from now on, in waves,” he said. Read More
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The former first lady Melania Trump is not interested in taking back the title, sources told CNN, despite her husband dangling the possibility of another Trump campaign.
"Not unlike 2016, Melania Trump has no intention really of joining the campaign," CNN's Kate Bennett said on Sunday. "I've spoken to people who said that she's not even really interested in being in the White House again, going through being first lady again."
Several of Melania Trump's friends told the outlet she had no interest in returning to the White House, let alone helping if her husband decided to run.
Former President Donald Trump hasn't declared a 2024 candidacy but has teased the possibility, saying his supporters will be "very happy" with his decision. Read More
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(CNN) — More than 80% of Americans 16 and older have some level of immunity against the coronavirus, mostly through vaccination, a survey of blood donations indicates.
The survey, led by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also indicates that about twice as many people have been infected with the virus as have been officially counted. More than 39 million Americans have been diagnosed with coronavirus infection since the pandemic started in 2020.
The team, led by the CDC's Dr. Jefferson Jones, set out to determine how close the US might be to some kind of herd immunity -- although they do not claim to have any kind of handle on that yet.
They worked with 17 blood collection organizations working in all 50 states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico to test blood covering 74% of the population. In the end, they tested about 1.4 million samples.
In July 2020, before any vaccine was available, 3.5% of samples carried antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. That rose to 11.5% by December, they reported in the medical journal JAMA. By May, 83.3% of samples had antibodies to the virus, most of them from vaccination.
And while in July 2020, blood surveillance indicated the US was only counting one infection out of every three true infections, that fell to one in two a year later. Read More
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Trade between the Jewish state and the Arab world has soared dramatically since the signing of the Abraham Accords, the Arab-Israeli peace treaties established in 2020.
Arab-Israeli trade reportedly grew by 234% in the first seven months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020, according to Central Bureau of Statistics figures cited by Yonatan Gonen of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The dramatic recent surge in Arab-Israeli bilateral commerce indicates that the rapidly normalizing ties extend far beyond formal peace agreements.
Zeev Lavie of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce (FICC) linked the dramatic rise in Arab-Israeli trade to Israel’s rapid integration in the wider Middle East. Read More
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Hundreds of Queensland families have been forced to remain in home quarantine after the parents of two children identified as close contacts said they did not want to have them tested for COVID-19.
About 900 families were sent into isolation on Friday after a four year-old-girl tested positive for the virus, along with her mother.
The girl, who was a close contact of an infected truck driver, attended The Boulevard Early Learning Centre at Mt Warren Park, with the facility also used as after school care for Windaroo State School students.
Both sites were listed as close contact exposure sites from August 31 to September 31.
"There are 36 children who go from the school to after school care - 34 out of those 36 have tested negative which is fantastic," Queensland's Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said on Monday. Read More
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The health department wants mandatory vaccination in certain industries. But while jabbing was important, acting director-general Nicholas Crisp said forcing vaccination by law was the wrong approach.
Crisp made these comments during a televised debate Newzroom Afrika aired on Sunday that included deputy justice minister John Jeffrey, Discovery Health CEO Ryan Noach and public health lawyer Safura Abdool Carrim.
Jeffrey repeated President Cyril Ramaphosa’s answer to the National Assembly on Friday. He had said: “No-one should be forced to be vaccinated. Instead we need to use the available scientific evidence to encourage people to be vaccinated to protect themselves and the people about them.
“At the same time‚ our occupational‚ health and safety laws require that we ensure a safe working environment. This situation poses challenges for employers who want to keep their workers safe from Covid-19‚ while respecting the rights of those who don’t want to be vaccinated.” Read More
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On September 7th El Salvador will become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. What will change? https://t.co/ACxc0YSPhX
— The Economist (@EconUS) September 5, 2021
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