There are likely to be over 150 coronavirus patients in a serious condition in Israel by the weekend, Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov said on Monday.
“I don’t see a model in which we end this situation with a small number of intubated patients or deaths,” Bar Siman Tov told KAN Reshet Bet.
A total of 4,347 Israelis have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus to date, including 80 people in serious condition – among them a young man in his 20s who was hospitalized at Assuta Ashdod University Hospital – and 63 patients requiring ventilation. Fifteen Israelis have died since the start of the outbreak.
Despite testing close to 6,000 people on Sunday, Bar Siman Tov said the tests were only giving authorities a “very partial picture” of the real situation.
“The fact that at least half of all patients are asymptomatic makes the disease problematic. In addition, each test has a false negative rate,” he said.
While the end of the Passover holiday in mid-April has been slated as a potential trigger for the gradual return of business and educational activities, Bar Siman Tov forecast that schools will remain closed and that “most things will not be renewed.”
The government will meet on Monday to discuss further restrictions on movement as it seeks to contain the outbreak.
After one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary advisers, Rivka Paluch, tested positive for the coronavirus overnight, some called on the Likud leader to enter quarantine.
“I demand that the prime minister and the Knesset speaker go into isolation,” said MK Yulia Malinovski (Yisrael Beytenu) during a Knesset coronavirus committee meeting on Monday. “I hear that the Prime Minister’s Office is ‘considering it.’ You don’t have to think, you have to do what you demand of your citizens.”
The Israeli Employment Service said that a total of 5,373 new applicants registered for unemployment benefits on Sunday night, bringing the total number of claimants to almost 945,000 or 22.7% of the workforce.
Since the start of March, 786,991 new applicants have requested support from the Employment Service – 90% of whom are employees placed on unpaid leave. Authorities expect total claimants to reach one million before the Passover holiday.
Employees placed on unpaid leave are likely to cost the state NIS 14 billion-NIS 15b. during the next three months, Finance Ministry director-general Shai Babad told lawmakers on Sunday.
Babad also presented committee members with the first details of the government’s long-delayed financial assistance plan, which is expected to be worth approximately NIS 80b. to businesses, employees and self-employed workers.
While refusing to provide exact details or sums involved in the aid package, which is still being considered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, Babad said additional funds will be provided to the healthcare system, salaried and self-employed workers and businesses. He added that the program is of a similar scope to initiatives implemented by many governments worldwide.
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