Israel's infection rate stands at 5.17% as 6,456 of the 133,055 who tested for the coronavirus were found to have COVID-19 Sunday, according to Health Ministry data.
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Israel has 76,541 active cases of the virus. There are 714 people in serious condition, 194 of whom are on ventilators.
Although 1,147,411 Israelis have recovered from the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, 7,541 have died.
There are 49 people currently hospitalized with the virus at Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
According to Professor Sigal Sviri Sarussi, the head of the hospital's coronavirus intensive-care unit, "The vast majority of critically and seriously ill patients are unvaccinated. The disease quickly deteriorates to a need for respiratory support or ventilation among the unvaccinated, and I am confident that if they had just gotten vaccinated as required, they wouldn't become so seriously ill, in particular the younger patients," she said.
"Anyone with eyes in their head understands hospitals today are unprepared for a continued increase in morbidity, and serious morbidity in particular. There aren't enough beds, there aren't enough ECMO machines, and there isn't enough medical staff. This serious shortage costs lives and leads to a very high number of deaths every day," she said, calling on the government to provide hospitals with thousands of additional medical workers to contend with the situation.
"It's not too late to recalibrate and allocate all of the resources and attention to the health system, even if it demands additional adjustments to the state budget, which has not yet been finalized by the Knesset. We must not forget the dead and harden our hearts to patients," she said.
At a Zoom meeting Sunday, director of General Medicine at the Health Ministry Dr. Sigal Libert Taub said: "There are hospitals that hospitalize intensive-care patients in all sorts of rooms that are not listed as belonging to the ICU," she said, in a move, she called "inappropriate." "There's a need to prioritize who will be in intensive care," she said, noting the country had 180 coronavirus ICU beds.
Libert Taub's remarks confirm an Israel Hayom report according to which Israel suffers from a lack of trained medical staff and ICU beds for those on ventilators.
One hospital director in attendance at the virtual meeting said: "The standard of care we provide patients is beginning to decline. We have reached a point where we're starting to prioritize who gets connected to the ECMO machines, and the main concern is that we will need to decide who gets hooked up to the ECMO – the old man who was vaccinated or the young person that wasn't vaccinated."
Health Ministry Director-General NachmanAsh said, "The mortality rate among coronavirus patients in serious condition is similar to that of the third wave, and that really worries me." Noting 40 of Israel's 80 ECMO machines were currently in use on coronavirus patients, Ash asked Libert Taub to look into how many more machines the state needed to acquire.
The Health Ministry chief warned the number of active cases was expected to rise, noting the current wave of the outbreak was more serious than previous waves. Likewise, he asked the government to provide hospitals with additional medical staff.
With Israeli Jews set to celebrate the Sukkot holiday, the parents of children in preschools and elementary schools across the country have been informed they will not be allowed back in the classroom without presenting a negative coronavirus test.
Before the start of the school year on Sept. 1, the government had asked Israeli parents to test their children in a move aimed at preventing infection, although the testing was not mandatory at that time.
While parents will need to sign a document saying their children tested negative for the virus, there is no way for schools to know if they were in fact tested negative for the virus or at all.
The Teachers' Union has voiced opposition to the move, which would require teachers to send students home if their parents had not signed off on the document. Union officials noted that they were in fact required to allow those children entry and ensure they remained in a separate area until their parents came to pick them up.
In a statement, the union said: "These tasks are contrary to the educational experience of school and kindergarten. The principals and kindergarten teachers will find it difficult to carry out this task, as it could harm the student, embarrass them, and lead to emotional distress so that students come to see pedagogical figures as threatening instead of protective."
Teachers' Union chief Yaffa Ben-David said: "Principals and kindergarten teachers will not be bouncers and will not confront parents. These regulations are a fabrication and harm both teaching staff and students. I oppose any attempt to turn pedagogical staff into coronavirus inspectors," she said, noting the union would take the issue to the High Court of Justice if the regulations were to receive approval.
Also Sunday, the Exceptions Committee authorized exemptions for those who recovered from the virus from mandatory testing before boarding a flight to Israel. Exemptions will apply to those who contracted the virus in Israel within three months of the flight.
Assaf Golan and Shimon Yaish contributed to this report.
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