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While the U.S., U.K. and Europe attempt to ramp up their own Covid vaccination drives, one country is outpacing them all: Israel. ... It has raced ahead of other countries that have also started their vaccination rollouts. To date, and with a new lockdown in place amid a surge in coronavirus cases, around 1.59 million people in Israel (of a population of 8.6 million) have received their first vaccine shot, according to Our World in Data. (Ellyatt, 1/8)

The U.K. plans to postpone giving the required second dose of their authorized vaccines by up to 12 weeks -- an attempt to hasten distribution of the first dose. This public experiment is highly controversial as the vaccines' second doses were authorized to be given three to four weeks after the first, per the clinical trials. (Ordonez and Woodruff, 1/7)

All three cremation chambers are working round the clock, while storage capacity for caskets has been repeatedly boosted. Despite all the efforts, the Czech Republic’s biggest crematorium, in the northeastern city of Ostrava, has been overwhelmed by mounting numbers of pandemic victims. On Thursday, cars from funeral companies delivered caskets every few minutes, some with “COVID” written on them. These days, the crematorium receives more than 100 coffins daily, about double its maximum cremation capacity. (Janicek, 1/8)

After an 18-hour flight from Dubai landed in Auckland, New Zealand, in September, local health authorities discovered evidence of an outbreak that most likely occurred during the trip. Using seat maps and genetic analysis, the new study determined that one passenger initiated a chain of infection that spread to four others en route. (Carey, 1/7)

South Korean researchers say they have designed an inflatable “negative pressure” ward for isolating and treating patients with infectious diseases like COVID-19, after the pandemic exposed shortages of such beds around the world. The rooms use a ventilation system that creates negative pressure to allow air to flow into the isolation room and be channeled out safely, helping prevent the spread of airborne pathogens. (Cha, 1/8)

With her 21st birthday fast approaching, Sara left the home she shares with her mother for her first trip on a plane. She didn’t tell her family the real reason she’d taken out a loan for 5,000 Brazilian reais ($1,000). Two days later and several hundred miles away, a 25-year-old woman packed a backpack in her one-bedroom Sao Paulo apartment and left for the airport with her boyfriend. Both women were bound for the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, seeking something forbidden in Brazil: an abortion. (Biller, Calatrava and Pollastri, 1/7)