Trying to persuade other groups to copy the Covid Plasma Initiative’s model
Photo: ESTYBPHOTOGRAPHY
The hall at the Raleigh Hotel in upstate South Fallsburg, New York, was bustling last Tuesday, despite the raging storm outside. Sheets of water were raining down as Tropical Storm Isaias pounded the region, knocking down thousands of trees and eliminating power to over a million New York customers.
Nonetheless, plasma donors from as far away as Boro Park and Lakewood streamed into the hotel to donate their precious plasma to coronavirus-stricken areas of the country. It was a significant donation of time as well — it takes 90 minutes for the blood to flow into a machine, sift it of its antibodies into a yellow collection bag, and then get juiced back into the veins.
The effort was organized by Mordy Serle and Chaim Lebovits, who founded the Covid Plasma Initiative earlier this year on the advice of Rav Yisroel Reisman to “make plasma mainstream.”
It was an unusual direction for the two businessmen — Serle is a real estate and trusts attorney, and Lebovits is a shoe importer. Hospitals were hardly equipped to accept plasma donations, and laws had to be changed to make it a legal treatment for COVID-19. But the latest research, which came out a day after the plasma drive at the Raleigh, shows that patients who get plasma treatment have a 50 percent reduced chance of dying from coronavirus.
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