(By: Sandy Eller) With over nearly 11,000 coronavirus-related fatalities in New York City over the last few weeks, the New York City Department of Health has been facing an unprecedented volume of requests for death certificates. Hoping to streamline the process, the DOH has begun issuing death certificates only through its eVital electronic filing system, eliminating paper certificates completely at this time. The DOH rolled out eVital in October 2018 and while many doctors have signed up for the system which issues electronic death certificates, a large number have not, particularly within our community and have been continuing to issue hand-written death certificates.

Amid tensions with Iran, President Donald Trump said Wednesday on Twitter he has given orders for the Navy to “shoot down and destroy” any Iranian gunboats found to be harassing U.S. ships. A U.S. Navy video last week showed small Iranian fast boats coming close to American warships as they operated in the northern Persian Gulf near Kuwait, with U.S. Army Apache helicopters. “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” Trump tweeted. Trump did not cite a specific event in his tweet, or provide details. The White House had no immediate comment. The U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet referred questions about the tweet to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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.

There are 13,930 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Israel as of Tuesday, of whom 119 are ventilated. A total of 4,353 Israelis have recovered from the virus and for the fourth day, there are more recovered patients than new patients in Israel, with a total of 481 recovered patients and 229 new patients. Israel marked 197 fatalities on Tuesday including Asias Argo, a 100-year-old Ethiopian woman, the mother of nine children and 30 grandchildren, who passed away at Kaplan Hospital in Rechovot on Tuesday morning and HaRav Chaim Aharon Turchin, 48, who had no history of preexisting medical conditions but passed away at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv overnight Monday, leaving 14 orphaned children.

A gunman disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires in a rampage across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia that killed 16 people, the deadliest such attack in the country’s history. Officials said Sunday the suspected shooter was also dead. A police officer was among those killed. Several bodies were found inside and outside one home in the small, rural town of Portapique, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Halifax — what police called the first scene. Bodies were also found at other locations. The assault began late Saturday, and authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly.

There are 13,265 people in Israel diagnosed with the coronavirus, of whom 113 are ventilated. The number of patients on ventilators has dropped by 8.6% from Friday as the curve continues to flatten in Israel. The number of active patients has also begun to decrease as well as the number of new cases per day. A total of 61 fatalities are from Israel’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities, almost 40% of Israel’s fatalities. A 33-year-old medical student who was training at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan is in critical condition after contracting the coronavirus, the first Israeli medical practitioner to fall seriously ill from the virus.

An attorney for the man accused of committing an anti-Semitic attack with a machete wants the body of the victim who later died to be exhumed. Attorney Michael Sussman wants the body of Josef Neumann exhumed for an autopsy, The Journal News reported. Neumann was one of five people injured in the attack on a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, on Dec. 28. “We need to know medically if it’s a murder or if it’s the consequence of some disease pattern or something else,” Sussman said in an interview Tuesday. Grafton Thomas has been indicted on federal hate crime charges and state charges including attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty. Sussman has argued that his client was not motivated by anti-Semitism and is mentally ill.

Family and friends are in profound shock and sadness by the sudden petirah of R’ Mordy Weiner z”l, Mordechai Ziskind ben Meir Elchonon. The family just marked his 57th birthday this week, as he lay in the hospital with the dreaded coronavirus disease. Mordy was greatly beloved and cherished by family, friends, and all who were zoche to know him. He leaves behind his beloved daughters Hennie and Tova, his beloved mother Devorah, sisters Esther, Naomi, and Fraidel, as well as his cherished grandchildren. He was always the life of the party, putting a smile on the faces of young and old alike. He had a giant heart, and extended it to the care of the elderly and sick, who truly adored him. He drove countless sick to hospitals for treatments, and selflessly took care of their families.

There are 11,235 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Israel, including 181 in serious condition, of whom 133 are ventilated. Israel’s youngest victim of the coronavirus, a woman in her 40s, passed away on Monday at Kaplan Hospital in Rechovot. Later on Monday, a man in his 80s passed away at Laniado Hospital in Netanya and an 85-year-old woman passed away at Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, raising the death toll to 113. A 747 jumbo plane carrying 60 tons of medical equipment from China arrived in Israel this morning, the first of five planes scheduled to land in Israel in the next four days to bring badly needed medical equipment from China, including 12 million masks.

The day before Pesach began, R’ Shlomo Rechnitz of Los Angeles enabled the simchas Yom Tov of thousands of avreichim of the Mir Yeshivah in Israel, who before the most expensive Yom Tov of the year, haven’t been paid their monthly Kollel stipends for Shevat and Adar. Thanks to a generous $3 million donation by R’ Rechnitz, one of our generations’s biggest supporters of the Torah world, the avreichim received their stipends and a special Yom Tov bonus right before Pesach began. This is the second time this year that R’ Rechnitz contributed to the Mir right before Yom Tov when the yeshiva found itself unable to finance the monthly stipends of the avreichim.