Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Tuesday that the government would revoke the so-called "green pass" from eligible Israelis who refuse to get innoculated with the third coronavirus vaccine dose.
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So far, every Israeli over the age of 30 can receive the dose, and 1,673,156 already have. The pass is a certificate issued to those vaccinated or who had recovered from the virus and developed antibodies, allowing them to enter hotels, restaurants, and event venues.
"We will probably reach 13,000-14,000 [daily cases], but without the booster shot, it would be much worse," Horowitz told Channel 13. "In two or three weeks, I suppose, the reproduction rate will go down to 1, and then we will see a decrease. In 3-4 weeks, I estimate."
A reproduction rate of less than 1 means an outbreak is subsiding.
On Wednesday, the ministry reported that of the 150,657 Israelis it tested for the virus the day before, 9,891 (6.69%) tested positive. The reproduction rate, which relates to the number of people each confirmed carrier infects, is 1.15.
There are 77,956 active cases in the country, with 1,118 Israelis hospitalized. Of those, 172 are in critical condition and 129 are on ventilators.
Israel has reported 1,015,043 cases, including 6,880 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic.
The ministry also revealed data relating to the mortality rate in the current infection wave, based on the 231 of the 404 Israelis who have succumbed to the virus so far. It said that 34% of them were unvaccinated, 61% were vaccinated, and the rest were only partially inoculated (have only received one dose of the vaccine, or less than two weeks had passed since they received the second jab.) More than a quarter, 36.2% of those who died had chronic diseases; 59% were men and 41% were women.
Most of those who died (124) were 80 years old and older, 65 were between the ages of 70-79, 34 were between 60 and 69, and two were 17 and 39 years old.
In the first wave of the pandemic, which lasted 100 days, 307 Israelis lost their lives; in the second, which lasted 152 days, 2,531; in the third, which lasted 175 days, 3,572 Israelis died.
The ministry began administering the third dose of the vaccine on July 30, and is already seeing signs of an impact on the country's high infection and severe illness rates fueled by the fast-spreading Delta variant, officials and scientists say.
"The numbers are still very high but what has changed is that the very high increase in the rate of infections and severe cases has diminished, as has the pace at which the pandemic is spreading," said Eran Segal, data scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and an adviser to the government.
"This is likely due to the third booster shots, an uptake in people taking the first dose and the high number of people infected per week, possibly up to 100,000, who now have natural immunity," he said.
According to Doron Gazit, a member of the Hebrew University's COVID-19 expert team, which advises the government, the rise in cases of severely ill vaccinated people in the 60 and older group has been steadily slowing to a halt in the last 10 days.
"We attribute this to the booster shots and more cautious behavior recently," Gazit said.
But even if the boosters are slowing the pandemic's pace, it is unlikely to fend Delta off entirely.
Dvir Aran, biomedical data scientist at Technion – Israel's Institute of Technology, said that while cases are retreating, other measures are needed alongside boosters to stop the pandemic. "It will take a long time until enough people get a third dose, and until then, thousands more people will become seriously ill."
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