The Health Ministry officials on Tuesday demand a full lockdown be imposed on the public starting at noon, Friday, Channel 12 News reported.
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Citing a relentless spike in infection rates, the ministry demands the government shutters the education system as a whole, close all but the essential businesses, and only allow Israelis to leave their homes for essential supplies, much like it did during the first lockdown, imposed in mid-March 2020.
The demand came against the backdrop of a troubling rise in the number of new infections detected daily.
The Health Ministry reported Tuesday that of the 110,813 coronavirus tests that were administered the day before, 8,308 were positive, raising the infection rate to 7.6%. The number of positive cases jumped by 3,000 since Sunday when the Health Ministry reported 5,205 Israelis had tested positive for the virus.
More than 1,000 cases were identified in Jerusalem alone. Forty-two percent of the positive cases came from the ultra-Orthodox sector. Exceptionally high morbidity rates were also reported in ultra-Orthodox cities like Beitar Illit, Modi'in Illit, Elad, and Bnei Brak.
Professor Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute, tweeted Monday that the number of patients in the ultra-Orthodox sector has jumped by 16 times in the past month.
"The spread of infections has not been this fast since the outbreak of the pandemic," he wrote.
Several religious leaders have called on the public to adhere to the Health Ministry guidelines, among them prominent leaders Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein.
There are currently 56,223 active coronavirus patients in the country. Some 837 patients are hospitalized in critical conditions. Israel reported 451,044 coronavirus cases and 3,448 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Health Ministry continues to investigate whether the spread of the virus has increased because of any of its mutations or because the success of the vaccination campaign has led to a lax attitude to social distancing guidelines.
Also on Tuesday, Moderna announced that the Health Ministry had approved its coronavirus vaccine for use in Israel.
"The Israeli Health Ministry has secured six million doses, and first deliveries [are] expected to begin in January," the American pharmaceutical giant said in a statement.
Israel has already begun its vaccination drive using the Pfizer vaccines and is the world's leading nation in the number of people inoculated. According to Health Ministry data, more than 1,370,000 Israelis have already received the first dose of the vaccine.
Some feared that Israel's incredible vaccination pace would slow down due to vaccine shortages, however, the arrival of the Moderna vaccines will make it possible for the immunization process to continue rapidly.
Moderna has received authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine in the United States and Canada, and additional approvals are currently under review in the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The company plans to produce at least 600 million doses in 2021.
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