Israel registered over 100 COVID-19 cases yesterday
Israel’s health system registered on Tuesday 128 new Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the country in 24 hours, the first such instance in over two months.
A medical worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine injection at a vaccination centre in Jerusalem on Jan. 6, 2021. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
Some 100 children at schools in Binyamina were infected in recent days with the highly contagious Delta (Indian) COVID-19 variant.
A similar outbreak on a smaller skill occurred last week at the city of Modi’in.
Director-general of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Hezi Levy, told IDF Radio on Tuesday that most of the new cases were children who have not been vaccinated.
“The vaccine works against the new strains, including against the Indian strain. We know it is probably more contagious,” he said.
An IDF report shows that the Indian variant is 60% more contagious than the British stain, the dominant one in Israel, and causes 2.5 more hospitalizations. However, the Pfizer-developed vaccine, with which the majority of Israelis were vaccinated, is effective against this variant.
This variant has previously been discovered in Israel.
The government issued a number of directives on Sunday to contend with the outbreaks, with an emphasis on Israelis returning from abroad who are importing new variants into the country, after the virus almost completely disappeared in the country.
While the majority of Israel’s population over the age of 16 is vaccinated, the majority of the children are not, and only recently were the vaccines made available to the 12 to 15 age group.
Professor Eran Segal, a scientist at the Weizmann Institute, noted that for the first time in months, there is “a slight rise in cases likely due to a few localized outbreaks” of the B1.167 variant.
However, he pointed out that so far there are still practically no cases of severe illness, with only five new critically ill patients in the past two weeks, and no COVID-19 related deaths in the last week.
Several officials have offered to reintroduce the requirement to wear masks in closed areas, and specifically in schools.
Over 5,500,000 Israeli citizens have received the first vaccine, some 59% of the entire population, and more than 5,151,000, about 55% have received the second shot.
Of the 49,044 tests done over the past day, 0.3% returned positive.
25 of the patients hospitalized with Corona are in serious condition, 18 of them are on life support. The numbers have been steadily dropping. Most Corona wards in Israeli hospitals have been closed.
6,428 Israelis have died of the virus.
