The number of SARS-CoV-2 cases confirmed in 24 hours in Israel has reached 5,466, the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday, a level that is the highest since September 23, while one patient died due to complications of COVID-19.
The death toll from the new coronavirus pandemic in the country has reached 8,244 dead out of a total of 1,389,247 infections, according to official figures.
The so-called active cases increased to 29,959, which is the highest level since October 9; it was less than 5,400 at the beginning of December.
The number of critically ill patients in hospitals increased to 101 (+8 in 24 hours).
A wave of Omicron infections could lead to herd immunity
A wave of Omicron mutation infections could lead to Israel achieving herd immunity, the country’s top health official said on Sunday, as daily cases continued to rise, according to Reuters.
The highly contagious Omicron variant has led to an outbreak of coronavirus cases worldwide. Infections worldwide have reached record levels, with an average of just over one million cases detected in the day between December 24 and 30, according to Reuters. Deaths, however, did not increase accordingly, which raises hopes that the new variant is less lethal.
By the end of December, Israel had managed to prevent the new strain to some extent, but with infection rates now gaining ground, daily cases are expected to reach record levels in the next three weeks. This could lead to herd immunity, said Nachman Ash, director general of the Department of Health.
“The cost will be a lot of infections,” Ash said. “The numbers have to be very high in order to achieve herd immunity. That is possible, but we do not want to achieve it through infections, we want it to happen as a result of vaccinating many people,” he said.
About 60% of Israel’s 9.4 million people are fully vaccinated – almost all with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine – according to the Ministry of Health, which means they have either taken three doses or recently had their second dose. But hundreds of thousands of those eligible for a third installment have not yet done so.
About 1.3 million cases of coronavirus have been reported in Israel since the pandemic began. But two to four million people may well be infected by the end of January, when the Omicron wave could subside, according to Eran Segal, a data scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a government adviser.
In the last ten days, the daily infections have more than quadrupled. Serious cases have also increased, but at a much slower rate, from about 80 to about 100.
Monitoring the seriousness of the disease, Ash is considering allowing a fourth dose of the vaccine for people over 60, after it was approved last week for the immunocompromised and elderly in nursing homes.
With information from AMPE, Reuters
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Source From: Capital
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