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Sunday, March 15, 2020

03/15 Links: Hamas antisemitic propaganda story taught in our schools; Rivlin: Coronavirus emergency will make Israel more resilient; Gantz gets 61 backers to form coalition, topping Netanyahu

From Ian:
David Collier: Hamas antisemitic propaganda story taught in our schools
The Times ran an exclusive in May 2018 about a young child, an aspiring footballer in Gaza being shot whilst playing football with his friends. A few months later the World Health Organisation (WHO) published an embellished version on their website -having the Israeli soldier deliberately shoot the child after a face-to-face confrontation. Schools provides the WHO story as a key case study for students to learn. The only problem – much of the story surrounding this tragedy was created by the Hamas propaganda machinery. Bookmark this blog – it details how the propaganda of a radical Islamic terrorist organisation ends up being taught to British students at school.
The boy who plays football

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland’s largest teaching organisation, provides material on the Israel /Arab conflict for both teachers and students. As you would expect, there is a lot of disinformation and distortion in their content. I was going through it to highlight the errors when I came across a shocking case study (activity 5) regarding the shooting of a young boy along the Gaza border.

The case study is a horror story. It is about Abdul, an eleven-year-old boy who loves to play football. He was too scared to play in his neighbourhood because of the ‘March of Return’ protests. Eventually his friends convinced him that his playground was far enough away from the fence. Then this happened:
One of the boys shot the ball too far and Abdul started running to get it. He was not aware that the ball had landed near the fence until he found himself face-to-face with an Israeli soldier. Abdul-Rahman had no time to run before the soldier aimed his gun at Abdul’s leg and fired. Because the bullet was fired at close range, Abdul-Rahman’s leg shattered and needed to be amputated below the knee. He is now the youngest amputee as a result of the mass demonstrations.

Propaganda Problems
Almost anyone who understands the Gaza protests can immediately see there is something wrong with the story. It claims Abdul came ‘face to face’ with the soldier who then deliberately shot him at near point-blank range. Israeli soldiers are not standing by the fence. Abdul would never have been face-to-face with anyone.

The case study describes a brutal, callous and deliberate shooting. It reads like it is carefully written propaganda. No student ever reading this would be left untouched by the tale. The story even has an image of a schoolboy kicking a football – designed to created identification between the student and the victim. The horror of this story made me look a little closer at the details. I am glad I did.
Reuven Rivlin: Coronavirus emergency will make Israel more resilient
President Reuven Rivlin told the Israeli public on Sunday to “keep calm and avoid hysteria.”

Speaking ahead of his meetings with members of the 23rd Knesset to receive their recommendations before announcing which member of Knesset will be tasked with forming a government in the next 28 days, the president reminded people to “follow the rules and instructions and do not give way to fear and panic.

“More than ever, the success of the State of Israel in dealing with this extreme crisis lies in the hands of our civil society,” said the president. “Now is when we are asked to give our children, on our own, a positive and normal routine. Now is when we are asked,more than ever, to take responsibility for our fellows, particularly the elderly among us – in our buildings, communities, neighborhoods, and those who are at the highest risk not just of getting sick, but of finding themselves isolated and without supplies.

“That is the spirit, our spirit, and if we maintain it, it will take care of us,” the president said.

He made clear that he did not believe that dealing with the coronavirus emergency - there are now around 200 people with the sickness in Israel - would be at the expense of Israeli democracy. Rather, he said, as in the past, dealing with enemies “has rather strengthened it and made our country, the State of Israel, more resilient.

“We are committed, more than ever, in light of the urgent need for a government, to hold essential democratic processes, even in a time of crisis,” he said.


Prof. Phyllis Chesler: The virus that has nothing novel about it
I have been tracking this virus for the last twenty years—no, make that for the last fifty years.

I am talking about another virulent virus, that of Jew hatred, a deadly plague that has managed to mutate over time and geography so that it is always at-the-ready, both in good times and bad, definitely in times of war, famine, plague, and natural disaster but also when hope is high and the going is good.

As has happened many times before, the Jews and Jewish Israel are being blamed for the Wuhan Virus by the mad mullahs of Iran. They say that “Zionists” are behind the Wuhan (Corona) Virus and that “Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of Wuhan (Corona) virus just against Iran.”

China, ground zero for the pandemic, is now blaming America for having brought it into China in the first place.

Let’s visit Wuhan, Hubei Province, China for a moment.

My friend and colleague, Marion Dreyfus, has written about her time in Wuhan in the early part of the 21st century. The city had absolutely no potable water and little hygiene; there was open sewage in open marketplace “eateries,” where wild dogs roamed and where bats and all other manner of fish, fowl, and bird were slaughtered, sold, and eaten.

For lunch, Dreyfus and her Chinese friends went to “the dirty alley” where they purchased “unidentified frying objects in woks,” which were as “delicious” as they were unknown. Wuhan’s live market was like a “free zoo,” where rats, bats, snakes, and scorpions were sold to be eaten and the “floors were awash underfoot with spill from the livestock.” As she so delicately phrases it: “The smell was... not Chanel #5.”

Due to the Wuhan Virus, I cancelled my upcoming Sunday lecture in Philadelphia on Anti-Semitism. I’ve continually kept up with this subject—‘twas easier and easier to do since there have been so very many awful-beyond-belief incidents and many thousands of pages of analyses. It is a subject that never seems to go out of style. But for this new lecture, I wanted to read and re-read absolutely everything relevant since my last public lecture on this subject which took place four years ago.



With Liberman’s nod, Gantz gets 61 backers to form coalition, topping Netanyahu
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman on Sunday joined the Joint List and Labor-Gesher-Meretz parties in endorsing Blue and White leader Benny Gantz for prime minister, likely giving him first shot at forming a government following the March 2 elections.

With the nod given by Liberman during consultations with President Reuven Rivlin, Gantz picked up 61 of 120 recommendations, compared to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 58 endorsements.

Still, Rivlin said he would invite both Gantz and Netanyahu for talks on Sunday night, in an apparent bid to encourage a unity government between the two largest parties.

Netanyahu’s Likud won 36 Knesset seats in the national election — the third vote within a year — compared to Blue and White’s 33, but the Likud leader’s right-wing bloc again failed to muster a parliamentary majority.

Once a close ally of Netanyahu’s Likud, the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu has refused to join a coalition led by Netanyahu after the previous two rounds of elections. Liberman in April 2019 backed Netanyahu for premier; he refrained from endorsing either candidate after the September vote.

Liberman’s backing for Gantz marked an unlikely alliance between the hawkish ex-defense minister, who has long condemned Arab lawmakers as “terrorist sympathizers,” and the predominantly Arab Joint List, with both aiming to unseat Netanyahu.

As of last week, Gantz’s only realistic path to a coalition appeared to be a center-left minority government backed on the outside by the Joint List, a controversial prospect that before the election the centrist leader vowed he would not pursue. Vocal opposition by rightist members of Blue and White, MKs Zvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel, along with Labor-Gesher-Meretz’s Orly Levy-Abekasis, who vowed to vote against a minority government, appeared to bury that scenario.

Rivlin’s invitation Sunday to Gantz and Netanyahu indicated the president was seeking to push a unity government. Efforts to force a unity government following the September vote were unsuccessful.
Entire Joint List backs Gantz as PM, heralding possible center-left government
Amid increased protective measures due to the coronavirus crisis, President Reuven Rivlin began his round of consultations with party representatives Sunday morning before deciding whom to task with forming a government following the general election earlier this month.

After the Likud party, as expected, recommended Benjamin Netanyahu to continue as premier and Blue and White recommended party leader Benny Gantz, the Joint List alliance of Arab and Arab-majority parties told Rivlin that all its 15 lawmakers would back Gantz as the next prime minister, a move that could potentially pave the way for a center-left government.

After elections, Israel’s president has the responsibility of tasking one of the 120 MKs elected in the March 2 vote to cobble together, and lead, a coalition that has the support of a majority of Knesset members.

Gantz would need a Knesset majority made up of his Blue and White (33 seats), the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu (7 seats) and dovish Labor and Meretz (6 seats without Gesher leader Orly Levy-Abekasis), with support from outside of the coalition from the Arab lawmakers of the Joint List (15 seats).

If all those parties recommend him to form the next government, even without becoming part of it, he would have the backing of 61 MKs compared to 58 for Netanyahu from Likud (36), the ultra-Orthodox Shas (9) and United Torah Judaism (7) parties, and the right-wing Yamina (6).

But while giving Gantz its support, the Joint List specified that it would only back his efforts to form a center-left government that would replace Netanyahu, and not any moves toward a unity government.
Why did Balad change its mind about Benny Gantz? – analysis
While several Arab Israelis praised the Joint List’s endorsement of Gantz, others accused Balad of “hypocrisy” for supporting the move.
“Balad has betrayed its voters,” said Samir Abdullah, a supporter of the party from Haifa. “I’m very disappointed with the leadership of Balad for endorsing General Gantz. We see no real difference between Gantz and Netanyahu. Both have been delegitimizing the Arab citizens of Israel.”

Balad officials defended their position by stating that the removal of Netanyahu from power and the integration of Arab Israelis into Israeli society was currently a number-one-priority for the Joint List.

“We didn’t recommend Gantz out of love for the man, but because we believe there’s an urgent need to prevent Netanyahu from remaining in power,” a Balad official told the Post. “Netanyahu has been inciting against the Arab citizens for a long time and we consider him a big obstacle to the full integration of the Arabs. On the other hand, we’re hoping that a Gantz-led government would endorse a new and better policy towards the Arabs.”

Balad later issued a statement in which it said that the reasons it opposed Gantz last year did not change significantly.

The statement said that Balad “took into consideration the position of our partners in the Joint List, as well as come accomplishments that were obtained during the negotiations with Blue and White, first and foremost recognition of the principle of refraining from taking unilateral steps regarding the annexation of some areas of the West Bank and the status quo at the Aqsa Mosque.”

According to Balad, other “accomplishments” achieved during the negotiations with Blue and White include a commitment to suspend demolition of illegal houses, a practical project to combat violence and crime and an increase in public funds allocated to the Arab sector.

“We took these matters into consideration and decided, despite our rejection of the endorsement [of Gantz], to abide by the decision of the majority in the Joint List, which won the confidence of the overwhelming majority of our people,” Balad explained.
Shin Bet says it nabbed Arab Israeli Hamas agent who posed as aid worker
The Shin Bet security service announced on Saturday that it had arrested an Arab Israeli woman who allegedly used her position as a humanitarian worker on behalf of the needy in Gaza to funnel money, supplies and intelligence to the Hamas terror group.

Aya Khatib, 31, from the northern town of Ar’ara, was recruited by a pair of fighters from Hamas’s military wing, the agency said in a statement, though it did not specify the date of her recruitment.

Khatib was arrested last month, but her identity and details of her case had been held until Sunday.

As part of her relationship with the two Hamas agents — Muhammad Falafel and Muhammad Khalawa — Khatib transferred hundreds of thousands of shekels to the terror group “while scamming aid organizations and innocent civilians who donated funds with the aim of reaching patients and the needy” in the Gaza Strip, according to the Shin Bet, which said part of the money went directly toward financing terror activity, such as attack tunnel construction.

In addition, Khatib transferred equipment for use by Hamas’s military wing, the Shin Bet said, without providing further detail.
PMW: Ignoring Corona and Israel health care aid, PA praises murderer of 37 Israelis
March 11, 2020, marked the 42nd anniversary of the most lethal terror attack against Israel, when Palestinian terrorists hijacked a bus and murdered 37 Israelis, among them 12 children, in 1978.

Despite the current Corona crisis and the daily contacts and aid that the Palestinian Authority is receiving from Israel, the PA and Fatah still found it important to highlight the attack and praise its leader Dalal Mughrabi.

In its official daily, the PA praised terrorist Mughrabi’s “daring, courage, well-developed national sentiment, and devotion to Palestine and Fatah” while she studied “military courses and received lessons in guerilla warfare” in Lebanon prior to the attack. It added that she “competed” with other terrorists to be picked for the “operation” planned by arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who in addition to planning this attack, was responsible for the murder of at least 125 Israelis:
“[Dalal] decided to join the ranks of the Palestinian revolution and to act in the ranks of the self-sacrificing fighters in the Fatah Movement while still a student. She took many military courses and received lessons in guerilla warfare, during which she trained with different weapons. While taking these courses, she became known for her daring, her courage, her well-developed national sentiment, and for her devotion to Palestine and Fatah… The plan was formulated by Martyr commander Khalil Al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad' (i.e., Fatah leader, responsible for the murder of 125 Israelis). The plan was based on a landing operation on the Palestinian coast (sic., the Israeli coast), taking over a military bus, and setting out in the direction of Tel Aviv in order to attack the Israeli Parliament building (which is in Jerusalem –Ed.). The self-sacrificing fighters competed among themselves to participate, and first among them Dalal Mughrabi…”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 12, 2020]

The official PA daily also promoted false information, for example that the Israeli victims were “soldiers” when they were in fact families on vacation with their children. The paper also exaggerated the terrorists’ achievements, stating that “hundreds on the Israeli side were killed and wounded.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 12, 2020] Significantly, from the PA’s perspective the more Israelis murdered the greater the attack.

It should be noted that Israel is in daily contact with the PA at the ministerial level to cooperate on fighting the spread of Corona.


JCPA: Will the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Quiet the Gaza Strip?
The refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, with their high population density, overcrowding, and lack of sanitation and hygiene, all have a high potential for the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

According to Hamas sources, the Hamas leadership understands this very well. It will, therefore, keep the borders calm with Israel for the near future, until the situation with regard to the coronavirus pandemic becomes clear.

Palestinian journalist Faiz Abu Shamala, on March 14, 2020, called on the joint military command of the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to announce their organizations’ commitment to calm with Israel in light of the outbreak of the coronavirus and the necessity to cope with this virus.

“We must ensure that no incendiary balloons are launched throughout this humanitarian battle with the coronavirus, and we must demand that the Israeli enemy meet their obligations of calm. The Palestinians are not terrorists but seek to return to their homeland. As long as the enemy is hurt by the coronavirus, we must show mercy to them and maintain the ceasefire, according to Arab customs,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

One of the issues that will require a decision by the various terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip is the “Land Day” event that took place annually on March 31.

According to the original plan, March 31 was supposed to be the date when the “March of Return” against Israel would resume at the border of the Gaza Strip.

However, officials in the Gaza Strip believe that with the spread of the coronavirus and the possibility of it reaching Gaza, the resumption of demonstrations on the Gaza border is likely to be postponed to another date.


MEMRI: Coronavirus In Iran III: Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi Denies Approving Purchase Of Vaccine From Israel
On March 11, 2020, following the spread of the coronavirus in Iran, the Iranian Hamdeli daily, which is identified with the pragmatic conservative camp, addressed the question of whether it will be permissible for Iran to buy the vaccine for the virus from Israel, if that country succeeds in developing the vaccine. The daily presented the opinions of two Iranian officials on this matter: Majlis Legal Committee Chair Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi and Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi. It quoted the latter as approving the purchase of a vaccine from Israel, if it is the only vaccine on the market. Following the publication, Shirazi’s office issued a statement denying that he had given such an approval.

The following are translated excerpts from the Hamdeli article and from the denial issued by the ayatollah’s office.

Hamdeli: Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi Forbids Purchasing The Vaccine From Israel, Unless This Is The Only Option
“This raises the [following] question. Given that purchasing a vaccine manufactured by Israel, either directly or indirectly, will yield a profit for this country, and given that we know that many Shi’ite jurisprudents disapprove of generating profits for Israel, can we still buy a vaccine manufactured by Israel? Hamdeli’s reporter asked the office of Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi.

“The question: ‘Is it permissible to use a coronavirus vaccine discovered and manufactured by Israel?’

“The answer: ‘It is forbidden to purchase or sell the vaccine if we know for certain that the profit made by the companies [manufacturing it] will go to the Zionists and Israel, unless this is the only medicine [available] and there is no other alternative. In the latter case, it is not forbidden [to buy and use the vaccine].’”[1]

Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi’s Office: The Report Is A Complete Lie
On the same day, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi’s office denied the report “circulated on the Internet and by some media outlets about the purchase of a coronavirus medicine from the regime that is occupying Jerusalem.” The statement, published by the Khabar Online news agency, added that “this report is a complete lie. No question on this matter was submitted [to us] and no answer was issued. We repeat our announcement that rumors of this sort are the work of people with ill intentions. The instructions, positions and opinions of Makarem Shirazi are posted only on his website, Makarem.ir.”[2]














BBC re-promotes the usual Gaza narratives in multiple Coronavirus reports
Bateman made no effort to clarify that the “recent bouts of fighting with Israel” were the result of attacks by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (or how they “add to the crisis”), how exactly that “deep split” between Hamas and Fatah affects healthcare, water, sewage and electricity supplies in the Gaza Strip or why there are “refugee camps” in a territory which has been under Palestinian control for fifteen years.

Bateman: “But some residents like Ibrahim Abu Leila hope the isolation could help ward off the latest health threat.”

Abu Leila V/O: “More than 11 years of blockade by land, by sea, by sky. The people that arrive here are counted. They come one day or two days and they leave. We don’t have hotels that tourists stay at so we don’t meet them, thank God. Maybe some good can come from the bad.”

Of course hotels do exist in the Gaza Strip and while normal tourism is understandably virtually non-existent in a destination ruled by a terrorist organisation, journalists, conflict tourists, foreign delegations and UN staff certainly do visit.

Bateman closed his report:
Bateman: “Gaza has so far avoided any confirmed Coronavirus cases. People know its impact could stretch their health system to the limit.”

That same observation is of course true in many other places around the world but as we see, the BBC made the most of the Coronavirus story to widely re-promote many of its long-standing mantras concerning the Gaza Strip even though no cases have been reported there so far.
Netanyahu sparks privacy scare with move to track corona patients’ phones
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday announced that Israel would begin using advanced digital monitoring tools to track carriers of the coronavirus, raising major privacy concerns and prompting accusations of mass surveillance.

Such tracking technologies, which in large part rely on data from cellphones, have principally been used by the Shin Bet security service in counterterrorism operations, not against Israeli citizens who have not been accused of a crime.

“Up until today I avoided using these measures in the civilian population but there is no choice,” Netanyahu said in a prime-time TV news conference.

While the Shin Bet security service confirmed that the dramatic course of action was indeed being considered, it denied rumors that the tools would be used to enforce quarantines, saying that they would only be employed to help authorities track the paths of confirmed carriers of the disease in order to find people they may have infected.

“It should be stressed that in any case, there is no intention of using these capabilities to enforce or monitor quarantine instructions,” the security service said.
Quarantine breaker arrested in Tel Aviv, balcony music fails in Israel
A person who was breaking the conditions of their required coronavirus quarantine was arrested in Tel Aviv after attacking security guards at a train station.

Video of the arrest showed police officers in full-body protective gear pinning down the man who was supposed to be in quarantine.

Israel Police stated that a man, 47, was found on Bograshov St. in Tel Aviv after refusing to stay in quarantine. He had been involved in an attack on security guards at the city's Hahagana train station. A hearing will be held on Sunday to determine whether to extend his arrest.

"The police call on the public to listen to directives and instructions from the Health Ministry; not following them disrupts the national effort to fight the outbreak of the virus and its spread in Israel," said Israel Police on Saturday night. "Additionally, there is an absolute prohibition on spreading fake news whose sole purpose is to plant panic throughout the public. Relevant and authoritative information, including updates and official directives, will be published only by authorized officials and on the Health Ministry website."
New Israeli app to notify users of potential coronavirus exposure
A new app developed in Israel in partnership with United Hatzalah will alert users if they have been in close proximity with a confirmed coronavirus patient.

The app, called Track Virus, works by tracking the user's location, crosschecking their path with those of confirmed coronavirus cases through the use of data listed by the Health Ministry. Users will receive a notification should they have been near a case.

All information gathered in the app is stored anonymously on each phone and is not gathered into a cloud storage system. No identification is needed for downloading the app.

The app is already available on Android and will soon be rolled out for iPhones. However, it does not work retroactively, so it is important that users download it as soon as possible.

“As the number of coronavirus patients rises, the harder it becomes for the public to keep track of all the different places that they have all been and the updates from the Health Ministry. Additionally, people often have a hard time recalling exactly where they have been and when,” United Hatzalah of Israel's vice president of operations Dov Maisel explained in a statement. “The app solves both of these problems.
Israeli cell therapy could treat respiratory effects caused by coronavirus
A regenerative medicine company based in Haifa, Israel, says its placenta-based cell therapy product could be used to treat hundreds of patients who are suffering from respiratory and inflammatory complications associated with the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“We will first approach COVID-19 patients through compassionate use so we can treat them immediately,” explained Yaky Yanay, president and CEO of the company that produces the cell therapy. “We will be able to support the healthcare system and be able to help maintain and contain this disease.”

Pluristem is moving forward with these efforts through a collaborative agreement with the BIH Center for Regenerative Therapy (BCRT) and the Berlin Center for Advanced Therapies (BeCAT) at Charité University of Medicine Berlin. Together, they are conducting a joint project evaluating the therapeutic effects of Pluristem’s patented PLX cell product on patients who are developing severe respiratory disorders, a symptom of the novel coronavirus and the cause of death for most critical patients thus far.

BCRT is a cooperative translational research institution of the Charité University Hospital in Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH).
Target patients, Yanay said, would be the aging population and those with pre-existing respiratory disorders.
New ventilator mask protects entire face from coronavirus
Many people are wearing facemasks to avoid breathing airborne coronavirus particles, and to keep from touching their noses and mouths.

However, even N95 masks can’t fully block tiny virus particles and can’t kill the virus (two masks under development in Israel aim to do that). Any blocked viral particles stay on the mask’s surface and pose a hazard when handled and thrown away.

Furthermore, facemasks don’t cover eyes. Although the nose is the main route for coronavirus into the lungs, some researchers believe the eye’s conjunctiva is another possible point of entry.

That’s why Israeli physician and serial medical-device inventor Dr. Noam Gavriely worked quickly to develop what he calls the ViriMASK Protective Oculo-Respirator.

ViriMASK is strapped around the head, covering the eyes with a see-through visor and the nose and mouth with a filtering mechanism. The device can be washed and reused. The filters must be replaced after 12 hours of use and disposed into a special envelope containing disinfectant.

The patent-pending ViriMASK should be ready for efficacy testing at an independent lab around mid-April.
Israeli start-up to donate 120,000 masks to stop coronavirus spread
An Israeli start-up company that developed an anti-pathogen fabric that could be used in masks to stop the spread of coronavirus is donating its first product – some 120,000 masks – to Israeli hospitals, medical professionals and coronavirus patients.

“Sonovia Ltd. is determined to use its novel technology for the good of the State of Israel,” the company said in a release. “In this crucial period, it is hoped that our efforts will help curtail the number of clinical cases of Coronavirus we see in Israel in the upcoming weeks and months.”

The Jerusalem Post first wrote about Sonovia in late January, when there were no Israelis diagnosed with the potentially lethal virus. Since then, around 200 locals have contracts the virus and the number is expected to grow.

Now, the company found a local partner to generate its industrialization efforts and Sonovia, whose technology is based on a lab-scale sonochemical process that was developed at Bar-Ilan University believes, “we have the ability to help prevent the virus from spreading.”
On Sunday, the company imported all of its stored fabric from its R&D line in Germany to its headquarters in Israel and then to a factory in Jerusalem that will make the masks. Dr. Jason Migdal, a research scientist with Sonovia, told The Jerusalem Post that the masks will be ready by next week.

Sonovia developed an almost-permanent, ultrasonic, fabric-finishing technology for mechanical impregnation of zinc oxide nanoparticles into textiles.
Nvidia calls on PC gamers to contribute to the fight against coronavirus
Gaming PC hardware manufacturer Nvidia is asking their typical clientele to put their powerful gaming PCs to use for a greater cause: Fighting the coronavirus.

The announcement was made over Twitter as part of a collaboration with the PC Master Race gaming community, which asks gamers everywhere to download the application Folding@home, a distributed computing project for disease research. The app simulates computational drug design and protein folding, among other aspects of molecular dynamics. However, what makes it so unique – as well as one of the world's fastest computer programs – is its usage of idle processing resources. Essentially, downloading this app onto your computer will allow its spare processing power to be used for the app's tasks and programs.

The app has been around since 2000, and over the years has resulted in the publication of well over 220 scientific research papers by the app's operators, Stanford University's Pande Laboratory. However, several new projects are now available on the app for "simulating potentially druggable protein targets from SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and the related SARS-CoV virus (for which more structural data is available)," Gamesradar reported.

These projects could lead to a better understanding of the virus, as well as lead toward possible treatments, and users can choose which project their data goes to.

Gaming PCs tend to be very good at working through several large tasks at once due to their powerful processing power.

Users don't need to do anything for the most part, with the software doing all the work in providing processing power, though they can see the progression of the research in real time. In addition, users can turn the application off whenever they wish – like to use their gaming PC for its intended use.

The app can be downloaded here.

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