Israel on Monday crossed a grim milestone, as Health Ministry confirmed the death toll from the coronavirus stood at 4,005.
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Israel has recorded 551,689 coronavirus cases since the pandemic erupted in March 2020. There are currently 1,130 patients in serious condition, while 467,790 Israelis have recovered from the disease. Some 2,116,257 Israelis have vaccinanted against COVID-19 over the past month, and 309,065 have already received the second dose.
Coinciding with the launch of the vaccination campaign has been a surge in coronavirus cases, with some 9,000 daily new infections diagnosed in recent days.
The cabinet is set to decide on Wednesday whether to extend the lockdown – Israel's third – by at least another week. The Health Ministry is pushing to extend it until the end of January, but Blue and White and the ultra-Orthodox parties vehemently oppose the move.
Meanwhile, a new study shows that lockdowns may have no more effect on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic than other voluntary measures, such as social distancing or travel reduction.
The study, published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation last week by researchers, affiliated with Stanford University, compared states that imposed strict lockdowns and business closures, such as the UK, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the US, to South Korea and Sweden that employed less severe measures, focusing instead on voluntary instructions.
It concluded that "while small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs [nonpharmaceutical interventions]. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less restrictive interventions."
The researchers further stated that "We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures."
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However, the scholars are known to have been vocally critical of the lockdowns, co-author Prof. Jay Bhattacharya being among the conceivers of The Great Barrington Declaration, a document that calls to end the lockdown policy and shift toward a focused protection plan of at-risk groups.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
