The coronavirus infection rate decreased slightly in the past 24 hours and currently stands at 26.15%, according to Health Ministry data published on Wednesday morning. Altogether, 230,715 Israelis were screened for the virus on Tuesday, of whom 60,329 tested positive.
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The reproduction rate, which refers to the number of people each confirmed carrier infects, also decreased slightly and now stands at 0.91. Any value below 1 means that the infection is subsiding.
There are 435,189 active cases in the country with 2,763 patients hospitalized. Of those, 1,085 are in serious condition – 316 are critically ill, 260 are on ventilators and 17 are connected to ECMO machines. Currently, 91,239 Israelis are in quarantine, of whom 6,644 are healthcare personnel, including 914 doctors and 2,199 nurses.
Thus far, 647,831 Israelis have been vaccinated with four doses, 4,443,628 with three, 6,096,034 with two, and 6,691,819 have received one shot.
Israel has reported 2,987,977 COVID cases, including 8,926 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020.
Ministry data also showed that several Israelis who recovered after contracting the Omicron variant went on to get infected with its subvariant BA.2. As such, experts fear that the antibodies created after the Omicron infection do not protect one against its mutation. Similar data was also reported in countries worldwide.
Although it is not yet clear whether BA.2 is more dangerous than the original Omicron strain, it is thought to be about 1.5 times more infectious. Countries that detected the subvariant have since reported an increase or renewal in morbidity. A Danish study that analyzed coronavirus infections in more than 8,500 Danish households between December and January said that not only is BA.2 more infections, it is also more resistant to vaccines.
Nevertheless, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that the subvariant does not seem to be any more severe than the original BA.1 form.
Dr. Boris Pavlin of the WHO's coronavirus response team told an online briefing that the subvariant is already becoming dominant in the Philippines, Nepal, Qatar, India, and Denmark.
He added, "Vaccination is profoundly protective against severe disease, including for Omicron. BA.2 is rapidly replacing BA.1. Its impact is unlikely to be substantial, although more data are needed."
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyeus also said on Tuesday that 90 million cases of COVID have been reported since Omicron was first identified 10 weeks ago – amounting to more than in all of 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With many countries easing their restrictive measures amid public fatigue about them, Ghebreyeus cautioned that Omicron should not be underestimated even though it has been shown to bring less severe illness than earlier variants – and cited "a very worrying increase in deaths in most regions of the world."
"We are concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of vaccines – and because of Omicron's high transmissibility and lower severity – preventing transmission is no longer possible and no longer necessary," he told a regular WHO briefing on the pandemic.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," Tedros added. "It's premature for any country either to surrender or to declare victory. This virus is dangerous and it continues to evolve before our very eyes."
WHO said four of its six regions worldwide are seeing increasing trends in deaths. And yet, many European countries have begun easing lockdown measures, including Britain, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Finland will end its COVID-19 restrictions this month. Denmark's government scrapped most restrictions aimed at fighting the pandemic this week, saying it no longer considers COVID-19 "a socially critical disease." The nation of 5.8 million has in recent weeks seen more than 50,000 new cases a day, but the number of patients in intensive care units has declined.
Also on Tuesday, Pfizer drug manufacturer asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize extra-low doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for children under five, potentially opening the way for them to start receiving shots as early as March.
Pfizer aims to give children as young as 6 months shots that contain one-tenth of the dose given to adults. The company said it had started submitting its data to the FDA and expects to complete the process in a few days.
The FDA said it will convene a panel of independent researchers and physicians in mid-February to help review the Pfizer data. The agency isn't required to follow their advice, but the input is a key step in publicly vetting vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Meanwhile, the Knesset ruled on Monday that the so-called "green pass" vaccine certificates will only be checked at the entrance to public events where there is a high risk of contagion, such as weddings held indoors. The ruling will go into effect next Sunday.
The government also decided that Israelis who have gotten vaccinated with the booster shots will be eligible for the pass indefinitely. For those who received only two doses, the pass will be valid for four months.
Lawmakers also ruled that COVID tests will no longer be mandatory for unvaccinated Israelis traveling abroad, though they may still be necessary in the destination country.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the meeting that the vaccines were "working well against severe illness and infections" as the reproduction rate is on the decrease.
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In related news, medics and nurses staffing Israel's coronavirus wards have recently lamented the shortage of manpower in parallel to the influx of patients.
"The staff is exhausted," Yoram Weiss, acting director-general of Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, said. "It's not like at the beginning of the pandemic when everybody was full of energy."
COVID wards have been filling up fast while numbers of staff due to Omicron, which has also sent many healthcare workers into quarantine, affecting the quality of care.
"We have on average 10-15% fewer doctors and nurses, while we need 20-30% more because of the flood of patients," Dror Mevorach, who heads Hadassah's coronavirus ward, told Reuters.
The shortage has also forced hospitals to divert resources to COVID wards, cutting back on other procedures, and in mid-January, several scientists urged the government to intervene to reduce infection rates.
They warned that the sudden influx of severely ill patients – most aged over 60 and many with serious pre-existing health conditions – would overwhelm a chronically under-resourced health system.
But the government, backed by other experts and with almost 65% of Israel's 9.4 million population vaccinated with a recent booster jab or second dose, has stuck to the softer-touch "living alongside COVID " approach to managing the virus that it adopted last summer.
It has rolled back restrictions while urging the public to self-test and stay at home if they are sick – mirroring moves in several Western nations such as Britain and France.
In January, it cut isolation times and cut quarantine for schoolchildren exposed to a carrier.
For Dvir Aran, a biomedical data scientist at Technion – Institute of Technology in Haifa, the government's moves have been "like watching a train wreck in slow motion".
But other professionals welcome what they see as a call for citizens to take personal responsibility while arguing that any restrictions are likely to have only a limited impact on the highly contagious Omicron.
"The government shouldn't be running a kindergarten, ensuring you stay home when you're sick," Yael Haviv-Yadid, head of the critical care ward at Sheba Medical Center said.
"Be responsible. Wear a mask and get vaccinated," she said.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
