Israel is seeing an increase in the number of COVID cases among children, and the healthcare system is already at peak capacity in the intensive care units, Chief COVID-19 Officer at the Health Minister Professor Salman Zarka said Monday at a meeting of government officials.
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The number of confirmed COVID cases in Israel now tops 1,000 for the first time in two months, the Health Ministry reported Monday morning.
The 1,004 new cases identified by testing in the last 24 hours is the highest since Oct. 20, and the reproduction rate in Israel continues to rise, reaching 1.22 on Monday, compared to 1.14 on Sunday. This means that every confirmed COVID carrier spreads the virus to an average of 1.22 other people.
There were 7,231 active or symptomatic COVID-19 patients in Israel on Monday, including 81 listed in serious condition. A total of 42 hospitalized patients were on ventilators. The total death toll from COVID-19 since the pandemic hit Israel in early 2020 stands at 8,232, with no new deaths reported since Saturday, Dec. 18.
On Sunday night, Zarka said in an interview to Israel Hayom that he expected there would be "thousands" of COVID patients in Israel within two weeks.
"We're heading into a wave that's unlike anything we've seen in the past. The numbers will be higher," he warned.
"The Delta variant was a very contagious wave, whereas Omicron is two to four times as contagious. The fact that today [Sunday] we have 175 confirmed Omicron cases is the result of our rapid response three weeks ago, when we stopped tourism. Without that, we could already have thousands," Zarka said.
Zarka also noted that the Health Ministry's strategy to combat Omicron was to open some 500 vaccination sites by the end of this week, some of which will be located at shopping centers and community centers, in addition to vaccination-mobiles. The ministry hopes to make vaccinations accessible as possible to both children and adults, he said.
"We're very worried about the Omicron wave, which has already begun. If we look at Europe, we realize that we're two-three, at the most – weeks away, and we're trying to translate that to as much protection as possible among the population," he said.
Zarka stressed that vaccines provides the best form of protection: "This week, we're at about 80 vaccination sites and we want to increase that to 400-500, and I hope it will happen this week and at the start of next week. We need to do it for the sake of the people, from the realization that it's wrong to meet Omicron when you're not protected. In addition, we're working to make the community clinics more accessible so no one will have a problem coming to be vaccinated. We'll wash the country in vaccines," he said.
Zarka spoke after last week the percentage of children in the Arab Israeli center vaccinated against COVID jumped from 1.1% to 4.6%.
Healthcare authorities believe the increased vaccination rate to be the result of the campaign to provide vaccinations in schools.
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The first week Israel deployed vaccination-mobiles at public schools, a total of 11,745 children and 450 adults were vaccinated for COVID. The Health Ministry plans to expand its vaccination campaign and enlist hospital personnel to help with it. A senior ministry official said that the number of mobile vaccination stations would be increased from 50 to some 150, and that they would visit some 500 sites a day.
For now, the ministry has avoided taking advantage of the IDF Home Front Command's logistical capabilities to execute the campaign.
Meanwhile, a senior official in the government's campaign against COVID said that the country's contact tracing system was not prepared to handle a wave of new confirmed cases and that new personnel needed to be hired immediately.
"The current number of contact tracers is enough to handle 500 to 1,000 confirmed cases [per day], but when the numbers are on the rise, we need to prepare for the next stage, of 1,000 to 3,000 confirmed cases per day," the official said.
"The reason we aren't doing that is because there are some people who won't approve the budget for it, and it's frustrating. If we don't build up our personnel now, and quickly, we won't be able to handle the pace of contact tracing, no two ways about it. In two or three weeks we'll have a hard time with it," the official added.
