Community Magazine May 2021

38 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE When the Coronavirus hit the U.S. a little over a year ago, there was no sense of how far the virus would spread, how devastating it would be, and whether there would be any treatment in sight. But as Jews, hopelessness is not in our vocabulary. That could not have been more evident when a small group of individuals rose to the occasion to help fight the virus with as-yet-untapped medical treatments. A group of just a few volunteers vigorously pursued a far-reaching program that eventually brought much-needed antibody treatments to the masses, potentially staving off worsening infections for thousands of people. These treatments came in the form of donated blood plasma from recovered COVID patients. The grassroots effort launched in New York has shown tremendous success in mobilizing both donations and infusions, saving thousands of lives. Modest Beginnings with the Action of Two Men Dubbed the Covid Plasma Initiative (CPI), it originally began in April 2020, when two men, Abba Swiatycki and Mordechai Serle separately sought treatments for ailing family members. Serle, a lawyer from Flatbush, coincidentally spotted a report in the media about “convalescent plasma therapy,” and desperately wanted it for his father-in-law, who was fighting COVID from a hospital bed. The therapy – quite an old concept in medical practice – is to take the plasma from someone who has recovered from an illness (and thus had built up antibodies to the illness) and infuse this plasma to someone else fighting that illness, so they too would have the immunities. Serle connected with Chaim Lebovits of Monsey after reading an article about his involvement in the WSJ. When the outbreak began violently spreading in the U.S. in March of 2020, Lebovits had set up a plasma drive in New Rochelle and encouraged community members to donate. Plasma Drives Take Off with Community Support Lebovits worked to network religious leaders and organizations, medicalandhealthprofessionals,andhospitals,inanefforttocoordinate resources. With the help of Swiatycki and Serle, plasma drives were set up in a variety of venues, including the Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn, a Baltimore synagogue, and an industrial park in Lakewood. Many medical professionals with a vested interest in the treatment were involved in this project including Dr. Shmuel Shoham – who led a Johns Hopkins University study on plasma treatment, as well as Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Michael Joyner. The New York Jewish community had been one of the hardest hit and was the quickest to jump into action to donate, and to help others. Several thousands of donors have participated in plasma drives across the country. Covid Plasma Initiative says it is “the primary donor pool of convalescent COVID-19 plasma in the New York region, and among the largest in America.” Froma tiny cadre of involved individuals, the initiative grew to awide- reaching coalition that included major hospitals such as Mount Sinai Hospital, New York Langone Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Maimonides (Brooklyn), Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus (NJ), the Mayo Clinic, and Northshore Hospital System. DAVE GORDON Grassroots Covid Plasma Initiative Saves Lives