Israel's coronavirus infection rate stands at 20.61%, according to Health Ministry data published Sunday. Of the 55,894 people who tested for the virus Saturday, 10,354 were found to have the disease.
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There are 138,824 active cases of the virus.
The number of people in serious condition has declined 20% over the last week. There are now 823 people in serious condition, 265 of whom are on ventilators and 28 of whom are hooked up to ECMO machines.
Although 3,391,607 Israelis have recovered from the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, 9,841 have died.
As of Saturday, the reproduction rate is 0.67.
Vaccinations against the coronavirus are also on the decline. On Friday, 132 Israelis received their first dose, 299 received their second, and 404 received their third dose of the vaccine. A little over 1,000 Israelis – 1,115 – received the fourth dose that day.
Meanwhile, despite the Omicron BA.2 subvariant making 20% of all coronavirus cases in some cities, experts increasingly believe it is unlikely to become the dominant strain in Israel.
The BA.2 variant now comprises 7.7% of all virus samples to undergo genomic sequencing in Israel. It is highest among those returning from overseas. Twenty percent of coronavirus traces found in wastewater in Umm al-Fahm were found to be the BA.2 subvariant. The mutation was also detected in wastewater in the central cities of Ra'anana, Netanyahu, Tira, as well as the southern Bedouin city of Rahat.
In a recent meeting of coronavirus experts, the point was made that one of the conditions for canceling Green Pass restrictions would be "tracking the variant, which could change trends in morbidity. Testimonies from around the world point to greater infection from the BA.2 variant and therefore the potential for it to become the dominant variant in Israel, and a resulting change in the trend and pace of the decline in morbidity must be taken into account."
The experts further concluded that "the risk of this decreases the more infection with Omicron spreads, which creates temporary immunity to infection with BA.2."
In a statement, the government's coronavirus information center said: "Within the framework of the national project to analyze coronavirus in wastewater, genomic sequencing was carried out. In this process, positive indications of the presence of the BA.2 variant present were found in several cities. In a majority of communities where the variant was detected, it appears to have been found at low quantities, aside from one community where a large amount comprising 20% of all genomic sequencing was measured that day."
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