Setting aside their differences for at least an afternoon, President Donald Trump and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed in an Oval Office meeting to work to double coronavirus testing in the hard-hit state over the next few weeks. “We will work together to help them secure additional tests,” Trump said after Tuesday’s meeting.

A Navy hospital ship deployed to New York City to help fight the coronavirus outbreak is no longer needed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday, expressing confidence that stresses on the hospital system are easing. Cuomo said after meeting with President Donald Trump that the USNS Comfort was helpful, but could now be sent elsewhere after being docked for weeks off of Manhattan. At an evening press conference, Cuomo said having the ship had been worthwhile, even as the need for it didn’t reach the levels that had been projected. “I believe Comfort not only brought comfort but also saved lives,” Cuomo said.

New York state issued a blanket do-not-resuscitate directive last week instructing first-responders not to try to revive patients without a pulse amid increased call volumes and lack of resources during the coronavirus public health crisis, according to a report. Paramedics were previously told to attempt to resuscitate a patient found in cardiac arrest for up to 20 minutes, the New York Post reported. The new order is “necessary during the COVID-19 response to protect the health and safety of EMS providers by limiting their exposure, conserve resources, and ensure optimal use of equipment to save the greatest number of lives,’’ according to a memo issued last week by the state Department of Health.

Today, Wednesday, there is an emergency plasma drive in Flatbush and Boro Park. This drive will allow you to join the growing community of COVID-19 survivors who are mobilizing to fight COVID-19. With the recognition by the medical community that recovered COVID-19 patient blood plasma can save lives, Boro Park Hatzolah, Yachad D’Bobov, Flatbush Hatzolah and Lakewood Bikur Cholim partnering with Mayo Clinic is offering COVID-19 IGG antibody testing for the purpose of identifying candidates eligible to donate plasma in our community. They will be holding a plasma testing drive Wednesday, April 22, 2020. If you had COVID-19, consider donating your blood plasma for plasma-derived therapy. You can help save someone’s life.

Westchester County District Attorney Anthony Scarpino, Jr. has announced an investigation into recent anti-Semitic “zoom-bombing” of Jewish religious services in the county, which were being video streamed to bring people together while following social distancing directives. The incidents took place via a Jewish center video stream on Friday, April 3, and a second incident the following week from another congregation. In both cases, congregation leadership had sent email invitations for anyone to join the interactive video stream. In both instances, an unknown person or persons logged into the Zoom-based video conference and interrupted the services with anti-Semitic acts, including posting swastikas and other offensive material for all participants to see.

TIME SENSITIVE: Flatbush Hatzolah is looking for volunteers who are trained in drawing blood on Wednesday to assist them in an urgent plasma drive. If you are able to draw blood or knows someone who may, please fill out the following form at this link. This is time sensitive, including early morning time slots needed – please respond ASAP. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
The post NEEDED IN FLATBUSH ON WEDNESDAY: People That Can Draw Blood To Assist Hatzolah appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

A Boro Park man was appointed to a top position in the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday. Mitchell (Moshe) Silk was appointed as Assistant Treasury Secretary by unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate. Mitchell Allen Silk is a lawyer, author and currently the Assistant Secretary at the United States Department of the Treasury for International Affairs. He is an expert in Chinese law and finance. Silk is the first and only Hasidic Jew to hold a US Administration senior slot. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Hospitals in parts of upstate New York will be able to conduct outpatient elective surgeries again, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday as he pledged to consider regional differences when re-opening the state’s outbreak-stalled economy. Hospitals in selected counties can resume elective outpatient treatments April 28 if a capacity benchmark is met and there have been fewer than 10 new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the county over the past 10 days. “We’re going to allow it in those hospitals and counties in the state that do not have a COVID issue or we wouldn’t need their beds in case of a surge,” Cuomo said at a briefing in Buffalo.

A tornado warning has been issued for Manhattan and the Bronx, as well as Nassau and Westchester counties until 3 p.m. as a storm system that brought similar warnings through the Southeast pummels the tri-state area. The rare warning came as radar notched 60 mph winds just east of the city. In addition to the tornado warning, a severe thunderstorm warning is in effect for all five boroughs of New York City, as well as Westchester County, until 3 p.m. The warning also applies to New Jersey’s Bergen, Hudson and Passaic counties, as well as Connecticut’s Fairfield County (until 3:15 p.m). Much of the region is under a severe thunderstorm watch until 5 p.m. (AP)

The streets are eerily quiet. Barely a soul walks by. But when Rabbi Shmuel Plafker arrives at the cemetery, it’s buzzing: Vans pulling in with bodies aboard, mounds of dirt piling up as graves are dug open, a line of white signs pressed into the ground marking plots that are newly occupied. Some of the few signs of life in this anguished city are coming from those tending to the dead. As the world retreats and the pandemic’s confirmed death toll in New York City alone charges past 10,000, funeral directors, cemetery workers and others who oversee a body’s final chapter are sprinting to keep up. Plafker, the chaplain at Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island, grips in hands covered by rubber gloves the long list of burials he must preside over this day.