On Sunday, the total number of coronavirus cases that were diagnosed in Israel stood at about 31,167. According to the data from the Health Ministry, this brought the total number of active cases in the country to about 268,274. As of Monday morning, the number of patients in serious condition due to the coronavirus had dropped below 1,000 to reach 994. This is the first time it has fallen below the thousand mark since late January. Of these serious cases, there were 268 patients who were intubated. The total number of tests that were conducted during the day stood at about 128,307, which brought the positivity rate to about 24.3%.
The transmission number has continued to decline since the past week, which measures the number of people an infected individual can spread the virus to. It stood at 0.72, which indicates that the virus is waning. The death toll in Israel has reached 9,544 since the beginning of the pandemic back in March 2020. It was reported on Monday afternoon that a five-month-old baby lost its life to COVID-19 at the Hadassah-University Medical Center, which is located in Ein Kerem in Jerusalem. The hospital stated that since his birth, the baby had been suffering from some serious background illness and after contracting COVID-19, his condition had further deteriorated.
He was suffering from serious respiratory illness and despite the best efforts to save him, the baby passed away. On Monday afternoon, Prof. Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute took to Twitter and talked about the Omicron wave. She said that the wave’s peak had passed and that it was time to review the actions that had been taken. He did a comparison of the predictions that had been made at the start of the wave by the government’s coronavirus cabinet and the actual data to assess how accurate they had been.
According to the predictions, the Omicron wave was to reach its peak by January 24th and it actually did do so a day later i.e. on the 25th. In addition, estimates had indicated that two to four million people would be infected and the data indicates that there were more than two million cases confirmed in Israel and it does not include those that had not been confirmed. Predictions had said that the number of serious cases would exceed 1,200 and for three consecutive days, more than 1,200 serious cases had been recorded.
Segal also talked about the efforts that were made for protecting the most vulnerable population. This included the adjustments that were made to the testing system, paid sick leave for those who were quarantined and the launch of the fourth shot of the coronavirus vaccine for high-risk groups. He said that the fifth wave had disrupted the routine and would continue to have an impact on the psyche. He added that it wasn’t possible to talk about success where the pandemic is concerned, but about the actions taken and if different actions could have led to different results.