With fewer than 500 active cases, can Israel go COVID-free?

As corona cases continue to drop, can Israel hope to become COVID-free?It is unlikely, according to experts, but the situation remains promising, and new plans to further open society are currently being considered, said Tomer Lotan, executive director of the National Coronavirus Task Force.

“We are considering a number of options, including in the area of the Green Pass,” he said on Sunday.

There were 511 active cases in Israel as of Sunday morning, compared with a month earlier on April 23, when the number stood at over 1,900. At the peak of the pandemic in January, Israel had over 80,000 people infected.

“For the past few days, on average we have identified some 25 to 30 new cases a day,” Lotan said. “Of those, some five or six come from abroad.”

The Health Ministry announced that in light of the high morbidity, Argentina, Seychelles and Russia were included in the list of countries under a severe travel warning. The ministry added that if the situation does not improve, they might be placed under a complete travel ban, as are India, Ukraine, South Africa, Mexico, Turkey and Ethiopia, countries that Israelis are prohibited from visiting.

Lotan noted that while the number of virus carriers entering Israel from the airport is small compared with the thousands of people who fly into the country, it shows the importance of maintaining a good policy for those arriving from abroad.

“I believe our currently policy is good, but there is room for improvement,” he said.

The Health Ministry has been working for months on implementing a program that would require those entering quarantine to wear an electronic bracelet upon arrival to monitor their compliance.

While relevant legislation has been passed, the program has not yet been implemented.

“Because we have no functioning government or Knesset, there is not much progress yet, but we have asked the Knesset Arrangement Committee to assign a relevant committee to authorize it,” Lotan said.

As the first groups of foreign tourists are set to start visiting the country in the next few days, and more nations are opening up to Israeli visitors, Lotan said that it will be very important to manage the borders well.

Asked whether there is a chance that Israel will find itself free from coronavirus, Lotan responded that he did not believe it can happen.

“We are not an island,” he said. “People come in through its ,borders and there is the Palestinian Authority. A certain number of infected people will continue to come in.”

Cyrille Cohen, head of the immunotherapy laboratory at Bar-Ilan University, agreed.

“I think that we will have a situation similar to the one we have with other diseases, including measles or chicken pox, where from time to time we see a case or a small outbreak,” Cohen said. “In addition, as COVID becomes rarer, people might not go and get tested if they have some symptoms, as it happens with the flu. When we have the flu, we do not go to get a PCR test to find out which strain of the virus we are infected with.”

Cohen describes the current situation in Israel in very positive terms.

“We can safely safe that after Purim, Passover and Lag Ba’omer, with the schools completely open, the situation is really good,” he said. “The only thing that I find puzzling is that the number of patients in serious conditions has not decreased for the past two weeks or so.”

As of Sunday morning, 60 people were listed in serious condition, compared with 141 four weeks earlier and almost 1,200 in the worst weeks of the crisis, significantly exceeding the number of patients that the Israeli health system was said to be able to handle without compromising the quality of care.

The R rate – which measures the average number of people that each virus carrier will infect – has slightly increased to 0.94 in the past few days, after weeks of holding stable at 0.7-0.8. Cohen said that while it is a little surprising, it might be due to the very low number of cases found during this period.

“If one day some 20 cases are found, and the following day 30, the R rate will increase, even if the numbers remain very small,” he said.

A R rate under 1 shows that the pandemic continues to recede, although at a slower place.

Cohen emphasized that it is important to continue to protect Israel from variants, “even though the available data shows that the vaccine is quite effective against them.”

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has resumed formulating a policy to vaccinate children age 12-15 years old, an official said, and that it expects to reach a final decision in the next 10 days.