Two people died of coronavirus in Israel early Thursday. In the past three weeks the country had registered only one victim – on June 23 – while the last time that two people succumbed to the virus within 24 hours was May 27.
A spokesperson for Wolfson Medical Center in Holon said that a 48-year-old man with no significant preexisting condition died during the night. He was not vaccinated.
The other victim, an 86-year-old man, was fully inoculated and died at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
In the current outbreak, over 40% of the cases are schoolchildren, and about half are individuals who were fully vaccinated, which might help explain why the increase in morbidity has remained limited, since both groups are unlikely to develop serious symptoms.
As in the previous days, 523 new virus carriers were identified on Wednesday; some 0.7% of the 74,811 tests processed returned a positive result. The country currently has some 3,600 active cases, compared to less than 200 around mid-June.
At the same time, only 37 patients are currently in serious condition. While the figure marks an increase compared to previous weeks – at the lowest, on June 20, the number stood at 21 – in April with a similar number of cases the country had some 140 patients in serious condition. At the peak of the pandemic there were 1,200 – with over 85,000 active cases.
While according to the Health Ministry’s data the vaccine has been proven less effective in preventing infection from the contagious Delta variant, it still offers an extremely high protection against serious symptoms, hospitalization and death.
However, a little over 40% of the patients in serious conditions were fully vaccinated.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, the coronavirus commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash said that the vast majority of these patients belong to at-risk groups, such as elderly people or individuals with serious preexisting conditions.
During the coronavirus cabinet meeting, also on Wednesday, the ministers decided that serious morbidity is going to be the most important parameter they will consider in formulating a strategy to counter the outbreak.
The authorities decided that inbound travelers will be required to isolate until they receive the results of the PCR test they underwent upon arrival and rapid corona tests – also known as antigen tests – will be performed at summer camps and programs for children and at the entrance of nursing homes.
No date was given as to when the measures will come into effect, but Ash said that it would take about a week.
In the meantime, Saturday is expected to be the last day when people under the age of 18 can receive their first shot of the coronavirus vaccine.
The current Pfizer supply is due to expire on July 31 and a new shipment is not expected before the fall, although the Israeli authorities are working on moving it up.
Israel has about 200,000 doses of Moderna, which it’s planning to use, but the vaccine is only authorized for people over the age of 18.
As of Thursday morning, some 155,000 children ages 12-15 – the latest cohort to become eligible for the jab – had been vaccinated, out of a population of about 570,000. Another 55,000 of them have recovered from COVID-19.