Israel's national booster campaign continues to bear fruit as the highly contagious Delta wave continues to subside. The Health Ministry reported Sunday that of the 64,742 Israelis it screened for the virus in the past 24 hours, 1,709 (2.76%) tested positive.
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There are currently 42,570 active cases in the country, with 879 Israelis hospitalized. Of those, 254 are in critical condition and 205 are on ventilators. Nine Israelis lost their lives to the virus on Saturday, bringing the total death toll to 7,783.
Israel has reported 1,289,240 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. In terms of vaccinations, 6,127,957 Israelis have been fully inoculated, 5,647,012 received their first jab and 3,472,304 got the third shot as well.
Meanwhile, an antiviral pill developed by US pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co could half the chances of dying or being hospitalized for those most at risk of contracting COVID-19, with some experts hailing it as a potential breakthrough in how the virus is treated.
If it gets authorization, molnupiravir ─ which is designed to introduce errors into the genetic code of the virus ─ would be the first oral antiviral medication for COVID-19.
Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, told reporters: "The data are impressive," and highlighted that the trial results showed there were no deaths among patients who received the drug compared to eight deaths in the placebo group.
The US has procured 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir should it be greenlighted, with the option to buy more.
Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said they plan to seek US emergency use authorization for the pill as soon as possible and to make regulatory applications worldwide.
The results from the Phase III trial – which sent Merck shares up more than 9% – were so strong that the study is being stopped early at the recommendation of outside monitors.
Planned interim analysis of 775 patients in Merck's study looked at hospitalizations or deaths. It found that 7.3% of those given molnupiravir were hospitalized and none had died by 29 days after treatment, compared with hospitalization of 14.1% of placebo patients. There were also eight deaths in the placebo group.
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In other news, an Israeli woman is hospitalized in the Maldives after having contracted COVID while on vacation in the South Asian country. Galina Ganchev traveled to the country with her daughter and developed severe pneumonia.
Due to Ganchev's severe condition, local doctors would like to put her on a ventilator. However, the daughter, who claims that the level of healthcare at the hospital is very poor, refuses to give her consent.
"We know that inserting the tube into the lungs is very dangerous, many die from infections or do not wake up or when they do, they are no longer able to breathe on their own," she said.
Neither the mother nor the daughter had been vaccinated.
"We did not get inoculated and would like to warn those who still aren't vaccinated – look what happened to my mom," the daughter said.
The travel insurance company that Ganchev and her daughter used said she will only be flown to Israel if her condition worsens.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
