Since the beginning of the week, Dr. Siddharth Tara, a postgraduate medical student at New Delhi’s government-run Hindu Rao Hospital, has had a fever and persistent headache. He took a COVID-19 test, but the results have been delayed as the country’s health system implodes. His hospital, overburdened and understaffed, wants him to keep working until the testing laboratory confirms he has COVID-19. On Tuesday, India reported 323,144 new infections for a total of more than 17.6 million cases, behind only the United States. India’s Health Ministry also reported another 2,771 deaths in the past 24 hours, with 115 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour. Experts say those figures are likely an undercount. “I am not able to breathe. In fact, I’m more symptomatic than my patients.

Vice President Kamala Harris told United Nations members on Monday that now is the time for global leaders to begin putting the serious work into how they will respond to the next global pandemic. The virtual address, Harris’ second to a U.N. body since her inauguration, comes as the United States makes progress on vaccinating the public and much of the world struggles to acquire vaccines. “At the same time that the world works to get through this pandemic, we also know that we must prepare for the next,” Harris said. The speech was co-hosted by U.N. permanent representatives of Argentina, Japan, Norway and South Africa. The Biden administration will mark its first 100 days in office this week.

India’s surge in coronavirus infections, growing at the fastest pace in the world, has left families and patients pleading for oxygen outside hospitals, the relatives weeping in the street as their loved ones die while waiting for treatment. Delhi has been cremating so many bodies of COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to start cutting down trees in city parks for kindling, as a record surge of illness is collapsing India’s tattered health care system. Outside graveyards in cities like Delhi, which currently has the highest daily cases, ambulance after ambulance waits in line to cremate the dead. Burial grounds are running out of space in many cities as glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night.

Simone Ravera rolls up her trousers, slips off her shoes and socks, then gingerly steps into the chilly waters of the Baltic Sea. The 50-year-old rheumatology nurse is slowly finding her feet again after being struck down with COVID-19 last fall, seemingly recovering and then relapsing with severe fatigue and “brain fog” four months later. “The symptoms were almost as bad as at the beginning,” Ravera said. Close to despair, she found a clinic that specializes in treating people with what have been called post-COVID-19, or long-term COVID-19, symptoms. Located in Heiligendamm, a north German seaside spa popular since the late 18th century, the clinic specializes in helping people with lung diseases such as asthma, chronic bronchitis and cancer.

Indian authorities scrambled Saturday to get oxygen tanks to hospitals where COVID-19 patients were suffocating amid the world’s worst coronavirus surge, as the government came under increasing criticism for what doctors said was its negligence in the face of a foreseeable public health disaster. For the third day in a row, India set a global daily record of new infections. The 346,786 confirmed cases over the past day brought India’s total to more than 16 million, behind only the United States. The Health Ministry reported another 2,624 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India’s COVID-19 fatalities to 189,544. Experts say even those figures are likely an undercount.

Israel’s unique “melting pot” population, lending it a wide demographic diversity, was the ultimate factor in Pfizer’s decision to choose Israel as the “test nation” for its coronavirus vaccines, Yisrael Hayom revealed on Wednesday. In the course of about 30 phone conversations between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in January, Netanyahu tried to persuade Bourla that Israel would be the ideal “test nation” for its new coronavirus vaccines. Bourla was initially considering using Estonia as a test case nation but Netanyahu, along with former US Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer (who was replaced by Gilad Erdan in January), convinced Bourla that Israel was the better choice.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced in a press briefing on Tuesday that Israel is preparing for a new vaccination drive in six months that will most likely include children. “Prepare your shoulders and kids,” he said, assuming that the vaccines will be approved for children by then. Last week, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that it’s likely a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine will be necessary between six and twelve months after getting the first vaccine, and annually after that. Netanyahu’s comments followed his announcement on Monday that Israel signed an agreement with Pfizer and Moderna for the purchase of millions of additional coronavirus vaccine doses for 2022.

The world’s fastest pace of spreading infections and the highest daily increase in coronavirus cases are pushing India further into a deepening and deadly health care crisis. India is massive — it’s the world’s second-most populous country with nearly 1.4 billion people — and its size presents extraordinary challenges to fighting COVID-19. Some 2.7 million vaccine doses are given daily, but that’s still less than 10% of its people who’ve gotten their first shot. Overall, India has confirmed 15.9 million cases of infection, the second highest after the United States, and 184,657 deaths. The latest surge has driven India’s fragile health systems to the breaking point: Understaffed hospitals are overflowing with patients. Medical oxygen is in short supply. Intensive care units are full.

Holocaust survivors experience lingering effects from the trauma they suffered in their younger years, increasing the chances of cancer and heart disease, according to a recently published Hebrew University study. The study examined the death records of 22,000 people who were followed from 1964 to 2016, comparing the death rates of Holocaust survivors from cancer and heart disease to non-survivors. Female Holocaust survivors had a 15% higher mortality rate and a 17% higher risk of death from cancer, the study showed. Interestingly, the study showed that the overall mortality rate of male Holocaust survivors wasn’t higher than non-survivors but they had a staggeringly 39% higher risk of dying from heart disease and a 14% higher risk of dying from cancer.

The last two coronavirus wards still open in Israel’s hospitals closed on Monday as infection and fatality rates continue to drop, Ynet reported. Israel began closing its coronavirus wards several weeks ago as the national vaccination campaign began to dramatically reduce infection rates. The remaining wards in the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera and Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Tiveria were closed and the remaining patients were transferred to the internal medicine wards. At the pandemic’s peak, three coronavirus wards were in operation at Hillel Yaffe. “I am pleased to announce we are closing down the last active COVID ward,” the director of Hillel Yaffe, Dr. Mickey Dudkiewicz, said.