COVID: Israel surpasses 500 serious patients, number expected to drop

The number of coronavirus serious patients in Israel is expected to drop already in the coming days thanks to the effect of the booster campaign, Health Ministry’s Director General Prof. Nachman Ash said Sunday.

“In the coming week we hope to see signs of a decrease in serious morbidity among people over 60 who are seriously ill,” Ash said, speaking to FM 103 Radio, part of The Jerusalem Post Group.

“We have preliminary information on the effect of the third vaccine against infection,” he added. “We estimate that this has halved the number of cases among the vaccinated, and in the coming days we will have to see that this trend is maintained and this is also reflected in the serious morbidity.”

Israel started to vaccinated individuals over 60 with a third shot on July 30 and over 800,000 people have received it, out of a total population of some 1.6 million. On Friday, the age was lowered to 50.

The decision to start a new vaccination campaign was made after it became clear that in many cases the highly contagious Delta variant was breaking through the protection offered by the inoculation, specifically among the elderly who were jabbed at the beginning of the year, although unvaccinated individuals have still remained significantly more likely to develop serious symptoms.

Currently, Israel has some 524 patients in serious condition 162 more than a week earlier.

Of them, 404 are over the age of 60, with 277 of them who were fully vaccinated. However, considering the serious cases per 100,000 people over 60, among the vaccinated – who are over 90% of the cohort – there are 21 cases, among the unvaccinated 135.

Some 4,145 new virus carriers were identified on Saturday – a number significantly lower than previous weekdays, when the number stood at around 6,000 but with fewer tests processed. Some 5.4% of the people screened tested positive, the highest rate since the beginning of March.

Government and health officials hope that the new vaccination campaign will help decrease morbidity to avoid harsher restrictions.

“I think we should wait and see the effect of the third vaccine, I very much hope that it will reduce the serious illness and that it will prevent a lockdown,” Ash said. “If there is no reduction in the serious illness, we will have to take the difficult steps and go to a lockdown.”

“The strategy we have chosen is to try to avoid shutting down the economy because of the economic and non-economic costs, based on the fact that the vaccines will have an effect and that the various decisions such as green pass and the Purple Ribbon will reduce morbidity,” he further noted. “We do not know if it works and if it does not work we will probably have to go for tougher restrictions as well.”

Beginning on Wednesday, the green pass system will be expanded to all activities and venues except for malls and stores, for which the Purple Ribbon outline will be brought back, allowing a maximum of one person per seven square meters (stores less than 100 sq. m. will be exempt).

Under the green pass system, only individuals who are vaccinated, have recovered, or have undergone a rapid test in the previous 24 hours will be entitled to enter certain venues.