In recent news, the State of Israel has decided to allow two nurses to light the torch on Independence Day. This is to show appreciation for and express gratitude to the medical teams that have been working tirelessly to save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nurse Narjas Abu Yamen is a 54-year-old resident of the Rameh village, which is located in the Northern part of Israel. She has been in this profession since the year 1989. When the pandemic first hit the country, she was appointed as the leader of several important medical teams. Alongside managing her subordinates, she was also doing her routine nursing work.
The second nurse, Maher Ibrahim, is a resident of Daburiyya. He was assigned to the coronavirus department of the Emek Medical Center, located in Afula, which is where he works at the moment.
Later on, a third nurse, Dr. Dror Dicker, was also chosen to be a part of the ceremony, which will include the lighting of the torch on the 73rd Independence Day of Israel. He is the lead of the coronavirus ward at Petah Tikva’s Rabin Medical Center-Hasharon Campus.
In other news, the reproduction rate, R, of the coronavirus is continually rising in the State of Israel. On Tuesday, it stood at 0.78, which had gone as low as 0.55 a couple of days earlier.
However, experts on health stated that this positive development could have been due to a minor technicality. Brushing off this rise, they said that as long as the rate stays below 1, the coronavirus pandemic will be considered in recession, albeit a little slowly.
The head of the Public Health Services in Israel, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, held a press conference where she expressed that there is no reason to worry and that the economy can continue to reopen since the R is well below 1.
It is believed that the increasing R could be because of a lower number of tests being administered in light of the Passover.
Where the reproduction rate, R, is concerned, it measures the number of people that are likely to get infected by the carrier of the disease on average.
As per the words of the head of the Ben-Gurion University of the School of Public Health of Negev and an epidemiologist, Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, these developments of the R are not especially worrying. He reviewed the overall situation of the virus and concluded that the slow pace of the vaccination campaign has more potential to cause harm at the moment.
He went on to add that it is vital to take a look at all the combinations of the various indicators because one is not sufficient on its own. He urged experts to conduct research regarding the patterns and trends to ensure that the infection does not spread once again.
Davidowitch went on to express his joy at the fact that the number of serious patients in the country, along with new cases on a daily basis has dramatically gone down. The number of tests coming up positive has also declined.