The Corona Cabinet convened on Wednesday to discuss imposing further restrictions on the population due to the rise in Corona morbidity in recent weeks, with the health ministry predicting that within a week the country will reach 1,000 new verified patients a day. But the meeting ended without any decision on restrictions—including at Ben Gurion Airport—except for a new strategy, whereby according to which the next steps would be taken based on the number of serious patients.
As of Tuesday night, 521 new Corona patients have been verified based on 85,429 test results obtained. As of Wednesday morning, only 40 hospital patients are suffering from the coronavirus in the country, out of whom 16 are on respirators. A total of 6,429 died from the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic. 5,680,953 have been vaccinated with the first course, 5,183,879 with the second.
Two weeks ago, there were only 22 hospitalized Corona patients in critical condition, so it can be said that the number of critical Corona patients in Israel has been almost doubled. But it remains to be seen how these numbers will jump to a thousand per day.
Prof. Eli Sprecher, Director of the Department of Dermatology and Deputy Director of Research & Development at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv, told Channel 12 News on Wednesday it was close to certain that Israel will soon see an increase in the number of serious patients, and it’s too early to say how significant it will be:
“It’s clear that we are expecting an increase in the serious illness – the question is to what level. The experience of the pandemic teaches us that the higher the increase in the general morbidity, the higher the number of cases of serious morbidity,” Prof. Sprecher suggested.
Prime Minister Bennett said at the start of the meeting:
The world is currently dealing with an immense wave of the Delta variant that is striking many countries. Our goal in the government is to continue managing – calmly and based on information and facts – the continued dealing with the coronavirus in general and with the Delta variant in particular.
In light of the data that we have, we aspire to maximum protection for the residents of Israel and their health alongside minimum economic harm and disruption of daily routines.
We will try to be as transparent as possible, to explain to the public what we are doing, to give an advance warning of moves, and to facilitate, i.e. instead of closing or banning and explaining how not, we will explain how so, as much as possible.
The youth vaccination project has had great success: Over 150,000 young people, aged 12 to 16 have been vaccinated in recent days. I call on everyone, whoever has not been vaccinated – get vaccinated. We have vaccines for everyone. Take advantage of this. Protect yourselves so that you will not need to be restricted in your activities.
Lastly, the masks work. We have indications regarding both the widespread use of masks and their effect. The masks are the strongest tool in dealing with the coronavirus without paying a price. With G-d’s help, we will succeed.