Jon Ossoff hires 1000’s of younger black Georgians to mobilize and finish the vote

Jon Ossoff has hired 2,000 young black Georgians in each country to mobilize and cast the vote for the Senate runoff election.

According to The Atlanta Voice:

Essentially, the Ossoff campaign hired 2,000 mostly black Georgians to mobilize their communities to vote. Ossoff believes the United States’ trajectory will change forever if the black Georgians are found out on January 5, 2021.

The mission of the mobilizers is to use their networks and contacts to increase the number of voters, especially among young black Georgians. According to their plan, organizers need to speak to their networks about the importance of the vote and explain how Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock will fight for them in real and relevant ways in the U.S. Senate. For example, Jon’s call for a $ 15 minimum wage, a new civil rights law, a new voting rights law, affordable health care, COVID relief, and other guidelines they know are important to their circles and families.

Ossoff’s organizers build engagement and reach voters who have not voted before:

Those 2,000 young Georgians, who had mostly not worked on political campaigns before, have now added 80,000 of their friends and family members to our network, and we are seeing their participation rates skyrocket.

– Miryam Lipper (@MiryamLipper) January 1, 2021

Stacey Abrams built a formidable election campaign in Georgia, and that effort is augmented by the campaigns of Ossoff and Warnock. It is not yet clear whether Georgia will be a purple or follow Virginia and become a blue state, but the Democrats are laying a foundation to compete in Georgia’s current and future elections.

Jon Ossoff is doing everything right and the nation will find out if it pays off in victory in four days.

For more discussions on this story, join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC groups.

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Mr. Easley is the Founder / Executive Editor, White House Press Pool, and a Congressional Correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His thesis focused on public order with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and professional memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association

Neurescue Gadget Underneath FDA Assessment Hopes To Enhance Cardiac Arrest Survival

Cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing 7 to 9 million people annually. With normal care, 1 in 10 people will survive cardiac arrest. Neurescue was led by Dr. Habib Frost and is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. With this new device, this survival rate should be increased to 9 out of 10 people.

The US Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing the Neurescue device to increase blood flow to the brain and heart in life-threatening emergencies. Standard treatment for treating cardiac arrest includes chest compressions and defibrillation. This replaces about a third of the blood flow in the body and compressions add about 30 minutes to a patient’s life. That small window and lack of blood can ultimately lead to brain damage and even death.

The neurescue device.

New rescue

The Neurescue device can double the time it takes a doctor to control blood loss and increase the opportunity for additional life-saving procedures such as stents or pacemakers. A catheter-based device is inserted through the femoral artery, blocking blood flow to the lower extremities and diverting it to vital organs within a minute.

“With Neurescue we want to widen this window of time so that we finally have enough time to get these patients to these specialized hospital departments, to finally get these patients onto this existing advanced machinery where we can support their hearts, place those stents, and place them Pacemakers that we know can get that heart out of this cardiac arrest situation, “Frost told CNBC.

The Neurescue device is inflated.

New rescue

Initially, the device will be available for major bleeding and future uses will be for cardiac arrest. Frost is currently intended for doctors and medical professionals and hopes to build additional neurescue devices for non-doctors.

“It’s at the core of our soul, making this type of therapy possible for these myriad patients who just aren’t getting this treatment today. That’s the big picture of where we’re going and what really motivates us on the team,” Frost said.

Watch the video above to learn more about the Neurescue device.

The U.S. airline’s 2020 losses are anticipated to exceed $ 35 billion within the dismal 12 months

Decommissioned and suspended commercial aircraft will be stored at Pinal Airpark in Marana, Arizona on May 16, 2020.

Christian Petersen | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The Covid-19 pandemic has been brutal for U.S. airlines, and significant relief is not expected until the second half of 2021.

FactSet analysts estimate that U.S. airlines’ net losses for 2020 are likely to exceed $ 35 billion. That includes Southwest Airlines’ anticipated first annual loss in more than four decades.

The pandemic ended a decade of profits that the historically booming industry saw through 2020. During that time, they hired tens of thousands of workers, bought new planes, and expanded their networks.

In 2020, airline stocks fell the most in years. American Airlines ‘stock price was down 45%, the largest percentage decline since the airline’s merger with US Airways in 2013. Delta Air Lines’ stock was down 31% while United Airlines was down 51% over the past 12 months. This was the biggest drop since 2008. Southwest lost 14%. The S&P 500 rose more than 16% in 2020.

The pandemic forced transportation companies to rapidly shrink, cut routes and park hundreds of jets. According to the Airlines for America trade group, US airlines increased their total debt by $ 67 billion to over $ 172 billion in 2020 to weather the crisis. The repayment will face headwinds for the next few years.

The good news is that demand for air travel has rebounded sharply from the levels seen at the start of the pandemic. On April 16, the Transportation Security Administration screened 95,085 people at US airports, less than 4% of the 2.6 million people who had passed through those checkpoints a year earlier. TSA airport screenings, triggered in part by the year-end holidays, hit more than 1 million people a day for the last five days through Wednesday, though that’s still about 45% fewer than last year.

As lucrative business and international travel largely got out of hand, vacation travel became the most important market.

Airlines are expected to reduce their losses and in some cases – including Southwest, Delta, Alaska – analysts estimate they will become profitable next year. The approval of coronavirus vaccines has contributed to optimism about future demand for travel, although it is not yet clear when more people will resume flying.

Airline executives recently warned that difficult months await as they have set breakeven point targets and say they will continue to operate limited capacity to meet weak demand. American Airlines President Robert Isom said earlier this week that the airline’s capacity is expected to be 45% of 2019 levels in January and February.

Many potential customers are still not flying as coronavirus infections rise to ever higher records, new travel restrictions are introduced and government officials recommend avoiding travel to slow the spread of the disease.

US officials said last week that all passengers must test negative for Covid-19 before flying to the US after a highly contagious strain of the disease was found in the UK, although this was also found in California and Colorado.

Carriers recently received $ 15 billion in additional wage support under the latest coronavirus relief package that President Donald Trump signed on Sunday. This requires airlines to keep their staff by March 31st and recall more than 30,000 workers they took on leave when the terms of the last $ 25 billion package expired on October 1st.

United Airlines executives believe this will only be temporary.

“The truth is, we don’t see anything in the data that shows a huge difference in bookings over the next few months,” said CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart in a December 21 employee statement. “So we expect the recall to be temporary.”

Will.i.am says it hurts that the black-eyed peas aren’t thought of a black group.

No one will deny that the Black Eyed Peas had hits, but it apparently hits the group’s founder, Will.i.am, that the group is counted in rooms that mean the most to him.

Will.i.am spoke to his good friend #WyclefJean about “Run That Back” to talk about the Black Eyed Peas and how disappointed they are that they are not celebrated as a black group despite having had great success. according to Hot New Hip Hop.

“In 2004 we, Black Eyed Peas, were just trying to get ahead. When you think about it – I’m a black guy, but when you think about Black Eyed Peas we got so big that … and it hurts, it still hurts a bit, that we weren’t considered a black group because we have it so big, ”said Will.i.am.

He continued, “And when you think of Black Eyed Peas, don’t think about it – it’s not an urban or black culture anymore, which… it’s not good for the black community that Black Eyed Peas are not considered a black group because we had international success. “

Will.i.am said the group’s international success “should be ascribed more to the black community than is believed”. He went on to list various genres that were once dominated by blacks but are now poorly represented, such as jazz.

“It’s just one thing we suffer from all the time. When you think of jazz, you don’t think of black anymore. When you think of rock n ‘roll you don’t think of black anymore. All of that, I don’t know why we have this. When you think of an even country, you don’t think of black. Many of the things we create and invent we dispose of or they are stolen from us to the point where they are no longer related to their origins, ”he said.

Is he speaking facts or no? Let us know.

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New York Governor Cuomo briefs the press on the Covid pandemic because the outbreak worsens

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will hold a press conference on Wednesday on the coronavirus as Covid-19 hospital admissions hit the levels last reported in early May.

According to the Covid Tracking Project, an independent volunteer organization launched by journalists in the Atlantic, 7,814 patients with Covid-19 were hospitalized in New York on Tuesday. This is the highest number since May 8th.

The increase in sick patients has led the state to prepare to reuse the Javits Center as an emergency Covid-19 field hospital. This emerges from reports in the New York Post quoting Cuomo senior advisor Rich Azzopardi and Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling. Cuomo has already announced that the state will reopen a field hospital on Staten Island after a surge in hospital stays.

The Democratic governor is also considering new lockdown measures in January if the current surge continues, although new restrictions are not guaranteed, he said. According to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the state has reported over 100 daily Covid-19 deaths for over two weeks, a total of more than 37,600 deaths since the pandemic began.

“As we near the New Year and the end of the holiday season, all New Yorkers must remember one simple truth – celebrating smart stop shutdowns,” Cuomo said in a statement Tuesday.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

The DOJ slams a lawsuit looking for Pence Biden’s victory to be null and void for Trump

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and members of the House Freedom Caucus hold a press conference to call on Attorney General William Barr to release the results of an investigation into 2020 election fraud allegations outside the Capitol on Thursday, December 3, 2020.

Tom Williams | CQ Appeal, Inc. | Getty Images

The Justice Department on Thursday filed a desperate Republican-led lawsuit to undo President-elect Joe Biden’s victory on the electoral college, calling the case against Vice President Mike Pence “a walking legal contradiction.”

The DOJ said in a recent lawsuit that Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, and 11 Arizona Republicans have sued “the false accused” – pence – in the case.

And senior DOJ officials called on a judge to deny the motion for an injunction allegedly enabling Pence to ignore the votes of the electoral college of a handful of battlefield states that gave Biden his lead over President Donald Trump.

Pence will chair Congress next week when he meets to confirm Biden’s victory.

Gohmert’s lawsuit calls on Federal Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee in the US Court for the Eastern District of Texas, to state that Pence has “the sole power and discretion” to determine which votes of any given state are counted should.

Republicans are calling on Kernodle to give Pence that power by deleting key sections of the Electoral Count Act of 1887, a law they claim contradicts the 12th Amendment.

Gohmert’s claim contradicts legal experts who say that Pence’s role, or that of a vice-president, is to direct the count of votes cast by the electoral college, not to judge which are valid or not.

Pence is the sole defendant in this case – a fact highlighted by John Coghlan, the DOJ’s assistant assistant attorney general, when he argued against the issuance of the injunction.

“These plaintiffs’ lawsuit is not an appropriate means of addressing these issues as plaintiffs have sued the false defendant,” Coghlan wrote in a trial.

“The vice president – the only defendant in this case – is ironically the very person whose power you want to promote,” wrote Coghlan.

“The Senate and the House of Representatives, not the Vice-President, have legal interests which sufficiently oppose the plaintiffs to establish a case or controversy under Article III. The defendant respectfully requests that the urgency motion of the plaintiffs be rejected because that requested by the plaintiffs Relief is not right against the Vice President. “

Coghlan also suggested that if there was a suitable target for Gohmert’s suit, it would be the House and Senate, not Pence.

“In fact, it is logically those bodies against which the relief requested by the plaintiffs must proceed.”

Later on Thursday, a House attorney filed his own brief asking Kernodle to dismiss the case.

“Aside from the claims made by Representative Gohmert – for which he clearly has no credit – this case is just another attempt by defeated Arizona candidates to reverse the results of their state’s referendum,” wrote Douglas Letter, General Counsel of the House.

“The Arizona plaintiffs tried, and failed, to overturn choices in lawsuits they filed in federal and state courts in Arizona,” Letter wrote.

“So you are now asking this Texas court to help you accomplish what you failed to do in Arizona. This court should reject the plaintiffs’ offer to overthrow a cornerstone of our nation’s democratic process.”

The latest Republican lawsuit follows dozen of failed attempts by Trump’s campaign and his allies to have the courts reversed or voided Biden’s votes.

Numerous House Republicans have supported some of these efforts, most notably an offer from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to have the US Supreme Court annul the results of four major swing states. The Supreme Court refused to hear this case.

Some Republican lawmakers plan to contest the election results when Congress meets next Wednesday. Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first Senator to take the move this week.

If a house member and a senator jointly object to a state’s electoral roll, the two houses must debate it separately and then vote on the objection.

Experts say there is no real chance of reversing the election result. Pence has shown no sign that he will raise these objections or otherwise attempt to overthrow the election.

Kim Kardashian Jokes Saint West remains to be “cute” after slicing his hair

Saint West goes with a brand new ‘do!

The 5 year old son of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West decided to give themselves a New Years haircut and He cut off some of his own hair on Thursday December 31st, much to the chagrin of his mother.

On her Instagram story, Kim shared some smiling photos of Saint with his new hairstyle and joked that he “still looks cute”. One picture showed a lock of his curly hair next to the red children’s scissors doing the deed.

Saint celebrated his 5th birthday at the Alpine Estate in Lake Tahoe earlier this month while on a family vacation in Kardashian. In his honor, the SKIMS founder wished her “baby” a good day and said: “One of the soulmates of my life. Every year I interview my children and ask them exactly the same questions about life. Saint – I can’t wait to see.” How you have grown and how you answer [sic] these questions as a 5 year old and show them to yourself when you grow up. “

Russell Okung’s bitcoin wage might entice extra skilled athletes to take a position

Russell Okung # 76 of the Carolina Panthers

Grant Halverson | Getty Images

It’s often referred to as a new form of gold, and now the Carolina Panthers offensive linemen Russell Okung is betting heavily on Bitcoin.

After almost two years of struggle, Okung finally fulfilled his wish and will have his salary diverted to the purchase of Bitcoin with the help of the mobile payment company Strike. The agreement, which allows the Panthers to pay part of Oken’s $ 13 million salary to Strike, can be converted into bitcoin.

“Money is more than currency, it is power,” Okung said in a statement. “The way money is handled from creation to diffusion is part of that power. Paying in Bitcoin is the first step in ending the corrupt, rigged economy we all live in.”

The National Football League and its players’ union were unaware of the agreement until Tuesday’s announcement, but the parties made no attempt to nullify or officially sign Oken’s agreement, which was being handled internally by the Panthers.

When an NFL spokesman, Brian McCarthy, spoke on Wednesday of the league’s stance on the arrangement, he emailed CNBC: “There was nothing to sign. The clubs pay the players in US dollars. What the players or his agents do with that. ” Money is theirs. “

To be clear, the Panther Okung do not pay directly in Bitcoin. Instead, the team will divert roughly $ 6.5 million of Oken’s salary to Strike, which will then presumably collect a fee and process Bitcoin transactions for Okung, a longtime advocate of the currency.

Strike did not respond to a CNBC request to confirm the transaction fees associated with Oking’s agreement.

Bitcoin is trading at more than $ 27,000, so Okung receives roughly 240 coins at that value. Since joining the Los Angeles Chargers in 2019, Okung has been campaigning for Bitcoin to replace his salary.

“In the long term, he hopes the price of Bitcoin will rise,” said Chris Matta, managing director for sales and trading at Bitcoin and cryptoasset company 3iQ, told CNBC on Tuesday. “And this move is evidence of his support and long-term upward movement for Bitcoin, which will grow even more from here.”

It’s like gold, but it’s not gold

Bitcoin was launched in 2008 and made a fortune for some as a single bitcoin jumped from under $ 1,000 to nearly $ 20,000 in 2017. This sparked a bull market for new crypto-based funds.

Bitcoin has since grown in popularity as Covid-19 disrupts economies as investors look for safety during the pandemic. Gold was the usual safety net for investors for decades, but Matta said Bitcoin is now being viewed as an alternative.

“It has become extremely attractive as a hard commodity, particularly during Covid-19 and all of consumer concerns about the global economy and geopolitical environment,” Matta said, referring to the comments made by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones on more in Bitcoin invest.

“The new digital gold, as it is called,” added Matta. “It put Bitcoin at the top of investment portfolios this year, and as a result, there’s been a lot of interest in it.”

Matta said Okens Bitcoin would likely be placed in offline digital wallets known as “cold stores.” The move gives Okung more protection from potential hackers who want to steal the currency from their account. Bitcoin accounts are not protected like FDIC-insured bank accounts.

“Keeping it offline is a lot safer, especially for someone like Russ who advocates Bitcoin,” Matta said. “Anyone vocal in bitcoin is a target for cyber hacking.”

Russell Okung # 76 of the Los Angeles Chargers leaves the field after beating the Seattle Seahawks at CenturyLink Field on November 4, 2018 in Seattle, Washington.

Otto Greule Jr | Getty Images

Risky step?

But like any investment, the 32-year-old Okung takes a significant risk.

Drew Hawkins, CEO of Edyoucore, a financial advisory firm, said the common fraudulent activity related to Bitcoin was worrying, adding, “A lot of people need to understand what it is and how it works and what it doesn’t.

“It’s a risk on what you can get your hands on with guaranteed dollars from a contract versus taking risks on that value of Bitcoin or not,” Hawkins said.

Although volatility is nearing new highs, it is tracking Bitcoin because of its steep correction history, which brought the trading price of a single coin down to $ 3,000 in 2017.

On Monday, Mark Newton of Newton Advisors told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” that his estimates show that Bitcoin’s current cycle will “peak” in early January. He said there could be opportunities to buy the cryptocurrency at lower prices by then.

“Bitcoin was an extremely volatile asset,” said Matta. “But in the longer term, it’s probably the best performing asset in the last 10 years. But if you don’t know what you’re doing and don’t invest in this thing long term, there will be a lot of volatility.” -between.”

Hawkins added, “People have done well and made a lot of money from it, but they have also had the same number of situations where what someone was expecting was not found out or where there were significant losses.”

Are More Athletes Going Bitcoin?

According to Bitcoin news site CoinDesk, Strike is also coordinating other agreements that mimick Okung’s with players from the Brooklyn Nets and New York Yankees. The side did not name the players involved.

Matta said Okk’s move would give Bitcoin more credibility, and that could spur even more athletes to invest in digital currencies. Potential investors can also buy Bitcoin through other mobile payment apps like PayPal, Cash App, and Square.

“Covid-19 overloaded bitcoin’s growth,” Matta said. “I think that would have happened to Bitcoin anyway. It could only have been a few more years to get to this point.”

– CNBC’s Hugh Son contributed to this report.

Correction: A single bitcoin went from under $ 1,000 to nearly $ 20,000 in 2017. In an earlier version, the year was incorrectly specified. This story has been updated to reflect the NFL’s comments on the matter.

David Perdue quarantine after Covid contact

Georgia Senator David Perdue went into quarantine after contacting someone who tested positive for Covid-19, his campaign announced on Thursday, less than a week before the Republican runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Perdue and his wife Bonnie tested negative for the coronavirus according to their campaign, which did not specify how long the 71-year-old incumbent senator would be in quarantine.

His contest against Ossoff is one of two runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday that will determine whether Republicans or Democrats will have majority control over the US Senate starting next month.

In the other race, incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler, Perdue’s Republican, meets Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock. Recent polls suggest close races in any runoff election.

Perdue was due to perform with Loeffler on Thursday afternoon at a New Year’s Eve rally and concert in Gainesville.

The guidelines issued by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require that people exposed to a person with Covid stay at home for 14 days after their last contact with an infected person.

“This morning Senator Perdue was informed that he had come into close contact with someone in the campaign who tested positive for COVID-19,” said a statement from Perdue’s campaign.

“Both Senator Perdue and his wife tested negative today, but according to his doctor’s recommendations and CDC guidelines, they will be quarantined,” the campaign said.

“The Senator and his wife have been tested regularly throughout the campaign and the team will continue to follow CDC guidelines. More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

Ossoff later tweeted, “I hope David, Bonnie, the campaign staff and supporters stay healthy and COVID negative.”

Loeffler quarantined himself at the start of the race after receiving inconclusive Covid test results on November 21. She has not tested positive for the virus.

Senator David Perdue (R-GA) speaks during a campaign rally as he runs for re-election at the Olde Blind Dog Irish pub in Milton, Georgia on December 21, 2020.

Al Drago | Reuters

In the final days leading up to Tuesday’s runoff election, Republicans stepped up their efforts to get a vote as data shows that Democrats enjoyed an advantage in turnout.

When asked during a Fox News interview how closely she and Perdue coordinated their drainage efforts, Loeffler said, “Our campaigns have come together in a nationwide operation of 1,000 people with 40,000 volunteers and 8,000 election monitors. So we all work hard one day to get out across Georgia and work with the Georgia voters and make sure they know what this is about. They know they’ll turn out. “

“The future of the country is at stake,” said Loeffler of the runoff election.

President Donald Trump is said to be promoting Perdue and Loeffler in Georgia on Monday.

President-elect Joe Biden will travel to Atlanta on Monday, and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris plans to visit Savannah on Sunday to surprise Ossoff and Warnock in the final push before election day.

If Perdue and Loeffler both win their runoff elections, Republicans will hold a 52-seat majority in the Senate. The Democratic caucus, made up of two independents, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Maine’s Angus King, would have 48 seats.

If Ossoff and Warnock win, the Democratic caucus would have 50 seats. With the groundbreaking vote by Vice-President-Elect Harris, this would put the Democrats in control of the Senate. Democrats currently hold the House of Representatives and will continue to do so in 2021, despite losing a number of seats in that Chamber.

The Covid crisis was an important topic in the election campaign. Perdue, in particular, was scrutinized by the Democrats over allegations of improper stock trading at the start of the pandemic.

Ossoff and Warnock have criticized Perdue and Loeffler’s handling of the crisis, while the incumbent senators have accused the Democrats of stalling efforts to get an aid package through.

More recently, Ossoff and Perdue used Trump’s call for $ 2,000 stimulus checks as an opportunity to criticize Senate Republicans for speaking out against a larger direct payment earlier in the Covid aid negotiation process. Perdue and Loeffler, who have strongly allied themselves with Trump, later parted ways with many Senate Republicans to support the president’s call for greater direct payments.

Georgia has reported more than 647,800 cases of Covid this year, with 10,846 deaths attributable to the coronavirus in the state.

More than 2.8 million Georgians have already voted in Wednesday’s runoff elections, a record turnout for such a competition in the state.

Israel Says It Has Vaccinated 7% of Its Inhabitants, In The US It Is Much less Than 1%

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man receives a vaccination against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as Israel continues its national vaccination campaign during a third national COVID lockdown at a Maccabi Healthcare Services office in Ashdod, Israel, on December 29, 2020.

Amir Cohen | Reuters

Israel has already vaccinated around 647,000 people against Covid-19, a whopping 7% of its 9.2 million population – more per capita than any other country in the world, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health.

The ministry said it vaccinated more people than infected total in the first nine days of its campaign. According to the Johns Hopkins University, Israel has had around 420,000 confirmed Covid-19 infections.

“We are ahead of the world when it comes to bringing and giving vaccines. Israel is the world champion in vaccines, in the first place,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday. “My mission now is to make sure that we continue at this pace and work on it together.”

In contrast, the United States vaccinated around 0.8% of its 331 million residents against Covid-19 on Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the agency warns that the number may lag behind actual vaccinations as states report the data. Still, federal officials have recognized in recent days that the rollout has been slower than desired.

While Israel’s population is only marginally larger than New Jersey’s, the nation’s success in rapidly introducing first doses to a large segment of its population could teach countries like the United States lesson

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health, pointed out Israel as a potential model for the world on Thursday.

“Israel is a world leader. They vaccinate 15 times faster per capita than the US,” he said on CNN. “They have already vaccinated 20% of their population over the age of 60. It would be like we had vaccinated about 15 million Americans over the age of 60.”

Central system

Israel’s main advantage is the centralized health system, said Eran Segal, a computer biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Segal has been closely monitoring Israel’s response since the pandemic began.

“As someone who has lived in the US for about a decade, I know that the US is much more dispersed. There are probably thousands of organizations,” he said in a telephone interview.

Segal noted that Israel, in contrast, also has a simplified insurance system, with only four health maintenance organizations. Segal noted that the Israeli health system is highly digital and everyone over 18 is required by law to register with one of the four HMOs. He added that the Israeli government had coordinated well with HMOs and local officials, and consulted military medics when necessary.

In the US, the early days of the rollout were marked by confusion among governors and civil servants about how many doses each state received. Eventually, General Gustave Perna, who oversees the logistics for President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed ​​vaccination program, took the blame for the miscommunication.

While the distribution has been smoother since then, states are administering shots more slowly than expected. Dr. Leana Wen, former Baltimore health commissioner, said it was not clear what is slowing the process. She noted that the federal government could help states set up additional additional vaccination centers.

Vaccination field clinics

Segal said Israel had set up field clinics to distribute the vaccine. The Israeli Ministry of Health announced on Monday that the country will open 150 so-called vaccination complexes.

Health Minister Yoel Edelstein said in a statement this week that Israel will be the first country to repackage doses of the vaccine in more portable containers so the country can ship the vaccines outside of hospitals and into more accessible clinics. “That way, we can get anywhere in the country without losing valuable vaccines, and Israel will be the world leader in vaccinations,” said Edelstein.

In the US, most vaccinations are given in hospitals or medical centers where healthcare workers are given their first doses. Recently, some outpatient emergency centers have also started vaccinating their staff.

CVS Health, Walgreens, and other pharmacy chains have also partnered with the federal government to distribute recordings to residents of long-term care facilities, though the CDC says the program is not yet fully operational. The US has signed contracts with pharmacy chains to deliver the vaccines at retail locations across the country once the program has expanded to members of the general public. However, the program has not yet started.

President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday his administration would “set up vaccination stations and send mobile units to hard-to-reach communities.”

“This will be the greatest operational challenge we have ever faced as a nation,” he said this week. “We’ll get there. It’s going to take a tremendous new effort. It’s not underway yet.”