A team of experts from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem just recently urged the government of the State of Israel to take necessary actions to ensure that the novel coronavirus does not spread in the country once again. They predicted that if the current situation ensues, the daily number of cases diagnosed could go as high as 1,000 in a time period of two weeks. Therefore, they stressed the need for restrictions.
Furthermore, the experts cautiously estimated that coronavirus vaccines are only 60 to 80% effective when it comes to preventing the widespread contagion caused by the Delta variant alone. This number is especially low when compared to the 90% efficacy that the vaccine has against the rest of the strains. However, they did point out that the jabs have been allowing for protection against serious illnesses, as was estimated earlier.
It was reported that some officials from the country have decided to talk about reinstating some of the restrictions related to the virus. Meanwhile, the highly infectious Delta variant continues to make its way across the State of Israel. The recently reinstated coronavirus cabinet is also expected to have a meeting sometime in the upcoming week to talk about the next steps for the country.
The last meeting that the cabinet had was on Sunday, in which the attendees talked about increasing the testing and enforcement on the borders of Israel. But no additional restrictions were implemented on the public after the government made indoor masks mandatory just last Friday.
As the coronavirus cases in the country continue to increase, the government of Israel has been urging the youngsters in the country to get vaccinated, specifically those aged from 12 to 15. More than 100,000 shots were recently administered to teenagers belonging to this age group, as announced by the Health Ministry.
The current caseload of Israel stands at a figure of 300. This number is high relative to the low dozens that were being recorded in the country just a couple of months ago. The vaccination campaign of the country had led to little to no cases in all of Israel. The Health Ministry revealed that as of now, 31 patients are in a serious condition, which is only a slight increase over the past few weeks.
The experts from Hebrew University released a new report, saying that without the implementation of new restrictions, the country is not likely to see a fall in cases. They said that it will become challenging for the country to avoid recording 1,000 cases in a day over the next two weeks unless strict guidelines are imposed. According to them, the policy to make masks mandatory is not effective enough to curb the rise of the virus.
They went on to caution that any additional stalling by the government of Israel would lead to the implementation of some serious restrictions in the future to minimize the damage.