The coronavirus reproduction rate, which kept subsiding in Israel for over a month, has risen back to 1, the Health Ministry reported Friday morning. Of the 71,082 Israelis who were screened for the virus on Thursday, 467 (0.71%) tested positive.
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There are currently 5,215 active cases in the country with 173 patients hospitalized. Of those, 126 are in serious condition.
Thus far, 4,038,711 Israelis have been fully inoculated, 5,761,459 have received two shots and 6,263,415 have been vaccinated with one dose.
Israel has reported 1,339,531 cases, including 8,154 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the ministry is poised to begin a national vaccination campaign for children ages five to 11. A shipment of Pfizer's special children's doses is expected to arrive at Ben-Gurion International Airport early next week.
In related news, a study published in the New York Times and the prestigious Science journal on Thursday suggested that contrary to the World Health Organization's initial report, the first known patient to contract coronavirus was a vendor at a large seafood market in Wuhan, China.
The WHO originally suggested patient zero was an accountant with the surname Chen who lived many miles from the site.
University of Arizona's Michael Worobey, who is considered a leading expert in tracing viruses, stumbled upon discrepancies when he was combing through the information that had previously been made public with regard to the origins of COVID-19.
Worobey argued that the vendor's ties to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and a recent analysis of the earliest hospitalized patients' connections to the market suggest the pandemic might have begun there.
The analysis identified a woman named Wei Guixian, who worked at the market and developed symptoms around Dec. 11, 2019, as the first verified coronavirus patient. The WHO has also documented a case with a woman who got sick around this date and who had a connection to the market.
By the end of December 2019, doctors at hospitals in Wuhan noticed an unusual rise in pneumonia cases in people who worked at the seafood market, which, according to the New York Times, was "a dank and poorly ventilated space where seafood, poultry, meat and wild animals were sold."
The research showed that the accountant that the WHO had identified as the first patient became ill on Dec. 16, not on Dec. 8 as was originally reported. According to Worobey, on Dec. 8 Chen had a dental appointment that had no connection to the coronavirus.
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