Researchers at the Hebrew University on Friday published an updated assessment according to which the third dose “booster” vaccination drive has blocked the trend of serious Corona illness. According to them, Israel should expect a decrease in the number of newly infected people in the coming few days.
Due to the decrease in new morbidity, the researchers believe “no further increase in the number of patients hospitalized in critical condition is expected. Most mortality is expected among the unvaccinated patients.”
However, they also point out that the start of the school year next Wednesday is likely to go awry due to the spread of the infection, but at the current rate of vaccinations, it should not cause the resumption of the outbreak.
On Thursday there were 8,078 new Corona infections in Israel, based on 133,423 tests (6.05%) – compared to 8,800 new infections out of 139,018 tests (6.33%) on Wednesday.
As of Friday morning, there are 680 critical Corona patients in Israeli hospitals, with 135 on respirators, compared to 692 critical patients out of whom 129 are on respirators.
Twenty-nine people have died of Corona in Israel over the past 24 hours.
A senior health ministry official told Reshet Bet radio that if there’s no change in the morbidity trends over the next few days, the government would have to re-examine its decision to open the school year on September 1. The ministry official explained that if classes are opened under the current morbidity situation it would lead to an increase in Corona morbidity.
The same health ministry senior official also called for more stringent restrictions on public gatherings. According to him, gatherings are a risk factor for infection and therefore in the current state of high morbidity multi-participant events must be reduced. Today, 5,000 people and even more are allowed to gather at cultural and sporting events. The official believes this should be reduced to no more than 200 to 400, without exception.
At the end of their Friday report, the HU experts stressed that “maintaining the existing restrictions and continuing vaccination with a booster dose is expected to lead to a decrease in the infection coefficient below 0.85 in the second week of September. Therefore, even if the opening of the school year results in a full 10% increase in the coefficient of infection, the decrease is expected to continue.”
See y’all in shul.
