In recent news, the State of Israel has recorded around 1,372 new cases of the novel coronavirus, which are the highest since the mid of the month of March. As of now, the rate of tests coming up with a positive result is 1.87%. Even the number of tests being processed reached their record high of 77,000, recorded over the last four months.
On the other hand, there has been a limited increase in serious morbidity in the country. On Tuesday morning, 62 people had been deemed to be in a serious condition, which is three times the number that was reported in the first couple of days of June. Back then, the number of active coronavirus patients in Israel had fallen below 200, as compared to the current 8,000. Just 24 hours ago, this number was four less than what it is now.
The Director-General of the Health Ministry, Prof. Nachman Ash, gave a press briefing on Monday, in which he stated that in the next two weeks, the country stands to register 2,000 new cases of the disease on a daily basis, along with 30 patients in serious condition every day. According to him, the rate of individuals being infected, whose conditions consequently turn serious, stands at 1.5%.
However, a computational biologist working at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Prof. Eran Segal, stated that the rate is currently at 1.2%. Acting as an advisor to the government, he pointed out that this rate is quite low, as compared to 3.9%, which was recorded during the third wave of the coronavirus. In his words, it will take at least 20,000 cases to be registered in a day for the country to have hundreds of serious patients.
Israel has never registered as many cases in a day. The highest had been only 10,000, recorded over a time span of a couple of days, at the peak of the pandemic. At the time, there had been 1,200 serious patients of the disease, which had placed an unprecedented burden on the country’s health system.
Sources have stated that the coronavirus cabinet will have a meeting on Wednesday, to talk about the strategy to be implemented to curb the current outbreak. The Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, as well as Nitzan Horowitz, the health minister, are currently urging that the green pass system be brought back for all gatherings held indoors, which have more than 100 participants.
In addition, the Happy Badge system is going to be coming into effect from Wednesday onwards, for parties and weddings. Both systems have been designed in a way to grant access to vaccinated individuals, recovered patients, and people who present a negative result of the coronavirus that has been performed in the last 72 hours.
The cabinet is also expected to discuss the situation of the airport, and whether or not the entrance of infected variants and individuals in the country should be limited. The health minister has made it clear that relevant authorities do not have any intention to shut down the airport.