The Health Ministry reported 48,095 new coronavirus cases in Israel on Thursday morning. Altogether, 401,747 Israelis were screened for the virus in the past 24 hours, which puts the infection rate at 11.97%, slightly down from the day before.
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The reproduction rate, which refers to the number of people each carrier confirms, stands at 1.91.
There are 258,664 active cases in the country with 879 patients hospitalized. Of those, 283 are in serious condition.
Israel has reported 1,669,629 cases, including 8,290 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. The number of COVID deaths increased by 78% in the last seven days, compared to the week before.
Thus far, 468,699 Israelis have received the fourth shot of the vaccine, 4,370,217 the third, 5,997,011 the second, and 6,657,395 the first.
Currently, 5,657 healthcare workers are in self-isolation, of whom 767 are doctors and 1,504 are nurses.
Given the spread of the highly-contagious Omicron coronavirus variant as well as the seasonal flu, officials worry the lack of medical manpower might affect the quality of healthcare.
"The medical staff is overwhelmed, both in hospitals and in the community," Professor Nadav Davidovitch, head of Ben-Gurion University's public health school, said. "The legitimate concern for the decline in the quality of healthcare stems from the load that characterizes every winter, including the flu, which this year is sharper than normal.
"The teams are worn out, and some of them are in repeated quarantines … If an increase in morbidity occurs, it will affect treatments and surgery in other areas."
Meanwhile, roughly one in three Israelis offered Pfizer's COVID pill Paxlovid for treatment refused to take the drug, according to a report published on Tuesday.
Israel began distributing the first COVID pill to at-risk patients on Sunday, and about 1,000 people started taking it, according to Channel 12 News.
However, while Paxlovid was tested to be very effective in preventing the virus from becoming severe among patients, some 400 eligible people refused to take it.
Due to limited medical supplies, patients considered to be at high risk can only get the treatment drug.
Doron Netzer of Clalit Health Services told Channel 12 News that some half of those who were offered the pill at his Health Maintenance Organization declined it.
"When we look into it, it turns out most people believe their illness is mild, and so even though they are at high-risk levels, they refuse to get the treatment," Netzer said.
Paxlovid is designed for at-home treatment of high-risk COVID-infected patients over the age of 12, The Times of Israel reported.
In December, the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug after Pfizer clinical trials showed that it was nearly 90 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in patients at high risk of developing severe illness.
The first shipment of the pills landed in Israel on Dec. 30, making the Jewish state one of the first countries to receive the new treatment.
Israel ordered 100,000 doses of Paxlovid overall as the health system rushes to combat the surge of Omicron.
In related news, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Tuesday that Israelis quarantined due to COVID-19 will continue to receive salaries, starting from the first day of isolation.
"We are confronting a wave of infection the likes of which the world has not seen in 100 years," Bennett said at a press conference.
One of the government's main guiding principles in responding to the expected increase in cases due to the Omicron strain, said Bennett, was to mitigate the damage to the economy as much as possible.
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"I do not want people to lose their jobs. I do not want businesses to close. It is easy to fire; it is more difficult to find work afterward. It is easy to close a business; it is difficult to rebuild it. I know this; I have managed businesses," he said.
"We still remember the abandoned businesses of previous waves; some of them have yet to recover … Therefore, [we will keep the economy] as open as possible," he added.
At the same time, he said, "we will not leave citizens to deal with this alone. The state will help carry the burden. Not everyone can work from home. Quarantines also have an economic price. Therefore, all workers in the economy will receive salaries even during quarantine, starting from the first day of quarantine. There will also be a response for the self-employed. We decided on this earlier with the finance minister and he has already announced it."
The premier also called on those who do not need to undergo a PCR test to make do with antigen tests, so as to preserve the limited number of the former for seniors.
Israel, he said, is among the best-protected countries in the world with regard to the pandemic, with "vaccines that others do not have, drugs that others do not have and economic assistance to those in quarantine."
Bennett concluded his remarks by stating, "These will naturally be difficult weeks, but we will get through it. There is no need to panic. There is no reason to get hysterical. We will get through this together."
