Israel’s Health Ministry is expressing increasing concern as the contagion rate of COVID-19 in Israel again begins to rise.
The ministry is mulling the possibility that it may become necessary to once again mandate indoor face masks – a mandate that was relaxed just last month.
The country’s medical centers have been asked to reopen the coronavirus wards that were closed with such a sigh of relief just a few months ago, as the previous wave of the virus subsided.
The news comes as the ministry confirms a dramatic rise in the number of Israelis testing positive for the virus, this time mostly the highly contagious but relatively mild Omicron BA.5 subvariant.
Health Ministry Director-General Professor Nachman Ash said in a statement Sunday that Israel is “exercising a definite rise in positive cases and in morbidity, but not in mortality.”
That may be due in large part to the country’s active campaign to inoculate the population against the virus. Many Israelis have received a fourth booster shot; even more have received at least a third.
Nevertheless, between Sunday June 19 and Monday June 20, the number of new cases of the virus topped 10,200 (10,202), the highest new daily case figure since May 5, 2022.
Moreover, there has been a corresponding rise in the number of patients, 168, listed in serious condition from the virus, and the daily number of deaths from the virus has risen from two to three. The infection rate (“R” number) stands at 1.32, indicating the virus is spreading aggressively.
To date, there have been 4,240,182 Israelis infected with the virus since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, with the death toll standing at 10,908.
