Susanna Frare said her family decided to take a “calculated risk” attending the home opener of the Texas Rangers, the first major U.S. pro sports event to approach capacity in a stadium since the coronavirus shutdown more than a year ago. The crowd of 38,238 at Globe Life Field was announced as a sellout Monday for the 6-2 loss to Toronto. The retractable roof was open on a 75-degree day with 15 mph winds. “Since it’s at full capacity, that was something that we gave a lot of thought about,” said Frare, holding one young child with another sitting next to her at a table behind seats in the upper deck in left field about two hours before the game.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas flew to Jordan by helicopter on Monday ahead of an official visit to Germany on which he will undergo a health exam, officials said. His office did not provide any further details on the trip, which was not announced in advance. A Palestinian official said Abbas would undergo a “routine health check” in Germany. The official was not authorized to comment and so spoke on condition of anonymity. The 85-year-old Abbas, a heavy smoker with a history of heart problems, has attended public events in recent days and there was no indication he was ill. He received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine last month. But he has traveled abroad for medical treatment in recent years.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of Israelis waiting for lung transplants in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Yediot Achranot reported last week. The report stated that at least 15 Israelis are currently being tested for compatibility for lung transplants. All of them are currently dependent on ventilators or ECMO machines as a result of coronavirus complications. “There were several coronavirus waves and what characterized the last wave is mainly the younger patients and the intensive care units full of recovered patients in relatively stable condition, but with irreversible damage to their lungs,” said Dr. Liran Levy, a transplant pulmonologist at Sheba Medical Center’s Institute of Pulmonary Medicine.

After months of hoping to receive a COVID-19 immunization and then weeks of fighting the illness after one never came, Air Force veteran Diane Drewes was down to her last few breaths at a hospice center in Ohio when the phone rang. It was a health care worker, calling to schedule her first appointment for a coronavirus shot. Drewes’ daughter Laura Brown was stunned by the timing of the call in January but didn’t lash out over the phone or even explain that her 75-year-old mom was at the point of death. There just wasn’t any point, she said. “But me and my sister were upset that it came too late,” Brown said. “It seemed like the final insult.” More than 247,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. since vaccines first became available mid-December.

A recent study carried out by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston showed that the coronavirus is six times deadlier than the flu. The researchers found that only 210 flu patients per flu season required hospitalization versus 582 coronavirus patients during the same time period, and the average age of the coronavirus patients was younger than that of the flu patients. Additionally, about 30% of coronavirus patients required ventilation versus only 8% of flu patients. Furthermore, the virus patients who required hospitalization had fewer pre-existing medical conditions that would have spurred the need for respiratory assistance. Ventilated virus patients remained hospitalized for an average of two weeks versus three days for flu patients.

The Tokyo Olympics open in under four months, and the torch relay has begun to crisscross Japan with 10,000 runners. Organizers say they are mitigating the risks, but some medical experts aren’t convinced. “It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks,” Dr. Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, told The Associated Press. “The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all.” Sugaya believes vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be “a prerequisite” to safely hold the Olympics, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan. Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals.

Police officers in Israel have been told not to enforce mask-wearing outdoors despite the fact that it still mandated by law, Channel 13 News reported on Monday. Officers have been instructed not to focus on mask-wearing at all and instead concentrate on enforcing quarantine rules. Coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash said on Monday that a discussion on ending the mask mandate will be held after Pesach. “Wearing masks is far less important in open spaces,” he explained. “But it important for people in groups and closed spaces.” Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Chezy Levy struck a more cautious tone on the issue, telling Army Radio on Monday that mask-wearing will continue to be required due to the 2.5 million children and 1 million adults in Israel who are still unvaccinated.

A joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press. The findings were largely as expected and left many questions unanswered, but the report provided in-depth detail on the reasoning behind the team’s conclusions. The researchers proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis. The report’s release has been repeatedly delayed, raising questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew the conclusions to prevent blame for the pandemic falling on China.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife have recovered from COVID-19 and returned to their regular duties on Tuesday, three weeks after they had tested positive for the coronavirus, the president’s office said. According to the statement, Syria’s first couple had their PCR tests and the results were negative, and the mild symptoms of the virus that they had experienced before were now gone. Assad, 55, and his wife, Asma, who is 10 years younger and had announced her recovery from breast cancer in 2019, had isolated themselves since testing positive on March 8. Later Tuesday, Assad’s office said the president headed a Cabinet meeting, his first public appearance in weeks. Syria is witnessing a sharp increase in cases.

On Monday morning, the first day of Chol Hamoed in Israel and exactly a year after the Chareidi sector in Israel was amid the worst coronavirus outbreak in the country and the city of Bnei Brak entered its first lockdown, the Health Ministry confirmed 128 new coronavirus patients, with only one of those cases from the Chareidi sector. Furthermore, the positivity rate in the Chareidi sector is only 0.8%, while the rate in the general population has decreased to 1.5%. The reproduction or R number in the general population in Israel had dropped to 0.55% in the general population and it stands at 0.44% in the Chareidi sector. All Chareidi cities, including Bnei Brak, Beitar Illit, Modiin Illit, Elad, Rechasim, Emanuel and Telzstone, continue to be “green,” with very low infection rates.