A South Florida hospital chain is suspending elective surgeries and putting beds in conference rooms, an auditorium and even a cafeteria as many more patients seek treatment for COVID-19. “We are seeing a surge like we’ve not seen before in terms of the patients coming,” Memorial Healthcare System’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Marc Napp said Wednesday during a news conference in Hollywood. Napp said they’ve opened up an additional 250 beds at Memorial’s six hospitals in Broward County. Unlike during last year’s spring and summer COVID surges when many sick people tried to avoid hospitals for fear of catching the virus, patients suffering from other ailments are also seeking treatment now, Napp explained.

Israel’s coronavirus cabinet approved a number of new restrictions on Tuesday night that will go into effect on Sunday, August 8. Masks will be required outdoors for gatherings of 100 people or more, 50% of government employees will work at home and the private sector will be encouraged to do the same, and parents/caretakers of children who contract the coronavirus must quarantine even if they’re vaccinated. From August 20, the Green Pass system will be expanded to all gatherings, even those less than 100 people, and unvaccinated children will be restricted from some public venues unless they can present a negative PCR test.

Researchers are trying to unravel why some COVID-19 survivors suffer “brain fog” and other problems that can last for months, and new findings suggest some worrisome overlaps with Alzheimer’s disease. One study of older adults in Argentina found a surprising amount of dementia-like changes in memory and thinking for at least six months after a bout with the coronavirus — regardless of the severity of their infection. Other researchers found Alzheimer’s-related proteins in the blood of New Yorkers whose COVID-19 triggered brain symptoms early on. The preliminary findings were reported at an Alzheimer’s Association meeting Thursday.

“It’s clear to everyone that if we don’t gain control we’ll be going to a lockdown,” a senior Health Ministry official was quoted as saying on Monday morning in a Yediot Achranot report. As Israel grapples with its fourth coronavirus wave, health experts say that another lockdown is inevitable as the continuous daily increase of coronavirus cases and seriously ill patients means that hospitals could be overloaded in a matter of weeks. The IDF’s Coronavirus National Information and Knowledge Center has warned that if drastic measures aren’t implemented soon, the number of seriously ill patients will skyrocket. According to sources in the ministry, if it becomes necessary to impose a lockdown it will be implemented during the Yamim Tovin in Tishrei.

New evidence showing the delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be more dangerous than other versions has prompted U.S. health officials to consider changing advice on how the nation fights the coronavirus, internal documents show. Recommending masks for everyone and requiring vaccines for doctors and other health workers are among measures the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post. The documents appear to be talking points for CDC staff to use in explaining the dangers of the delta variant and “breakthrough″ infections that can occur after vaccination.

Israeli health authorities began administering coronavirus booster shots Friday to people over 60 who’ve already received both does of a vaccine, in a bid to combat a recent spike in cases. The decision was announced Thursday by the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, making Israel the first country to offer a third dose of a Western vaccine to its citizens on a wide scale. ″Israel is a pioneer in going ahead with the third dose for older people of the age of 60 and above,″ Bennett said during Friday’s launch. The decision comes following rising infections caused by the Delta variant, and indications that the vaccine’s efficacy drops over time. Bennett said that a team of expert advisers had overwhelmingly agreed that the booster campaign was necessary.

History was made on Wednesday when thanks to the transfer of a kidney from Israel to Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi to Israel, three kidney transplants were carried out on Wednesday, two in Israel and one in Abu Dhabi. At 5:30 am., the first surgery was performed at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, with doctors removing a kidney from Shani Markowitz, 39. The kidney was placed in a special cooler and rushed to Ben-Gurion Airport to be placed on a three-hour flight to Abu Dhabi. At 7:30 a.m., the next surgery took place in Abu Dhabi, with doctors removing a kidney from an Emirati woman. The kidney was rushed to the airport and flown to Israel to be transplanted in an Israeli woman at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

As over 2,000 new coronavirus vases were confirmed in Israel on Wednesday for the second straight day, with 153 seriously ill virus patients, several hospitals around the country began reopening their coronavirus wards. Meanwhile, the Bennett-Lapid government is reluctant to implement any major restrictions and some health experts are expressing alarm, saying that Israel is amid a fourth wave that won’t just disappear without restrictions and that the number of seriously ill patients may triple itself in another month. Over the past few days, tension over the coronavirus situation has made the headlines, with the main players being the Education Ministry versus the Health Ministry.

As Israel’s coronavirus cases continue to surge, the US Centers for Disease Control on Monday raised its travel alert level to high. The CDC now lists Israel as “Level 3: High,” only one level below its most severe travel rating, a major jump since June when the CDC lowered Israel’s travel rating to “Level 1: Low.” The CDC website warns that US citizens traveling to Israel should be fully vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated should avoid non-essential trips there. “Because of the current situation in Israel, all travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants,” it states. Israel on Tuesday confirmed a high of over 2,000 new daily coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours, the highest number since March.

India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the South Asian country. Most experts believe India’s official toll of more than 414,000 dead is a vast undercount, but the government has dismissed those concerns as exaggerated and misleading. The report released Tuesday estimated excess deaths — the gap between those recorded and those that would have been expected — to be 3 million to 4.7 million between January 2020 and June 2021.