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Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the benefit of humanity.
Apr 01, 2020...
JERUSALEM — Teams of epidemiologists and computer scientists on three continents have started mass population surveys to try to get ahead of the coronavirus and ensure that scarce diagnostic tests, and even scarcer ventilators, are sent where they can do the most good.
More than two million people in Britain and 150,000 Israelis have already completed simple questionnaires, and many are updating their answers daily. Analysts of the data — including symptoms of Covid-19 and test results, as well as risk factors and demographics — say they have been able to identify incipient outbreaks days ahead of the authorities.
Jun 01, 2020...
A joint project by the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Weizmann Institute of Science and healthcare provider Clalit has been to teach the best practices in the fight against coronavirus to Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, communities and medical staffs abroad.
As the peak of the outbreak seems to have come and gone in most of the Western world, the general opinion is that Israel stood the test well. Specifically, the number of deaths was minimized compared to many other countries: as reported by the AFP, with 284 patients who succumbed to COVID-19, the Israel has registered a number of victims equivalent to 31 per million inhabitants, compared with around 310 deaths per million (10 times as many) in the US, about 560 in the UK and 427 in France.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/a-in-digital-science-education/
Apr 24, 2020... Experts from the Department of Science Teaching are the creators of a learning technology platform called PeTeL (short for Personalized Teaching and Learning). Used in hundreds of science classrooms in Israel’s Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking educational sectors, PeTeL gathers real-time data from individual students about what they know and do not know, analyzes student performance using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, then offers students targeted follow-up assignments, in accordance with teacher-defined goals.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/a-sniff-test-for-coronavirus/
May 04, 2020... Prof. Noam Sobel, of the Department of Neurobiology, is a leading authority on how olfaction affects human behavior and health. Data emerging from the coronavirus pandemic show that many patients experience a temporary loss of their sense of smell. So dramatic is this loss that, in some countries, patients who report a sudden loss of olfactory acuity are declared to be coronavirus patients, even without further testing. The CDC recently added olfactory loss as a formal symptom of COVID-19.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/navigating-the-new-normal/
May 06, 2020... To roll back this calamitous cascade of events, we need exit strategies— integrated sets of policies that will enable a responsible re-boot of productivity while minimizing the risk of COVID-19 resurgence. One component within such a broad strategy, recently proposed by the Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Uri Alon and Prof. Ron Milo, rests on a novel mathematical model for public health involving a cyclic schedule of lockdown and free movement.
Apr 02, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—April 2, 2020—Along with fever, cough, and shortness of breath, many COVID-19 patients report a temporary loss of sense of smell. It appears that olfactory loss is significantly greater in coronavirus patients compared to the loss often experienced during a cold and, less commonly, in influenza (non-COVID-19) patients. In some countries, such as France, a patient who claims to have sudden onset of olfactory loss will be diagnosed as a coronavirus patient – without even being tested. A similar approach is being considered in the U.K. Based on this data, Weizmann Institute of Science investigators, in collaboration with Israel’s Edith Wolfson Medical Center, developed SmellTracker – an online platform that enables self-monitoring of one’s sense of smell – in order to detect early signs of COVID-19, or in the absence of other symptoms.
Jun 01, 2020...
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the public last week to “return to normalcy, get a cup of coffee, a glass of beer… have fun” – and that is what most Israelis did.
But that return to normalcy appears to have runneth over, and the cup is apparently no longer half full.
As Israelis declined to comply with social-distancing directives, children returned to school, restaurants opened, and the number of people screened for the novel coronavirus dropped, the country quickly started to see a surge in active cases of SARS-CoV-2.
May 13, 2020...
A group of experts advising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the national response to the coronavirus pandemic found a correlation between one's income and education level and the chance they would contract coronavirus, N12 reported Wednesday.
The report published on Tuesday by the team headed by Professor Eli Waxman of the Weizmann Institute of Science suggested people with lower levels of income and education are more likely to contract the virus. According to N12, the team said people with higher education were less likely to contract the disease, even if their income level was low.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/covid-19-is-all-about-the-curve/
Apr 26, 2020... Prof. Doron Lancet of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science says that the Covid-19 curve has developed in the same trajectory in many countries regardless of their lockdown policies. By his reckoning, the significant statistic is not the number of cases but the pattern of development, which is similar in every country including Israel and is currently falling. According to Lancet, it was not the lockdown that led to the change in direction in Israel, or at least not just the lockdown, but something natural in the development of the disease and he insists that a comparative analysis proves this. By this logic, even the complete relaxation of the lockdown (although this is not necessarily what he recommends) would not result in the kind of figures being seen in Italy or New York.
May 08, 2020...
It started with a tweet. Alpha Lee, co-founder and chief scientific officer of machine-learning company PostEra, read on Twitter that Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility, had identified a set of chemical fragments that attach to an important coronavirus protein.
Lee wondered if his company, formed just six months earlier, could help connect the dots from fragments to viable drugs to fight COVID-19. PostEra uses AI algorithms to map routes for drug synthesis to speed the drug discovery process. But to do so, they would need some design ideas. So Lee asked the Internet.
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