In a telephone meeting with senior health officials on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett instructed that rapid testing be administered at entrances to nursery homes – including those vaccinated – to prevent outbreaks in the facilities.
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Earlier in the day, an infection outbreak was reported in an elderly care home in the central Israeli town of Savyon, where 25 people tested positive for the virus, amid "high suspicions" that the infections were caused by the Omicron variant. All residents and staff members will be tested for COVID on Sunday.
Bennett also instructed officials to prepare for a possible sixth coronavirus wave and purchase an additional 50 million antigen test kits and conduct an equipment assessment across hospitals.
On Saturday, confirmed Omicron cases in Israel reached 1,118, more than triple the 341 cases reported on Tuesday. Of the 1,118 carriers, 723 have recently returned from abroad.
The Health Ministry also said that another 861 infections were suspected to be Omicron cases, pending test results.
On Friday, 1,775 new carriers were reported, the highest caseload in over two months when 1,816 new cases were reported on Oct. 12.
The reproduction rate, which relates to the number of people each confirmed carrier infects, reached 1.4, the highest in almost half a year, when an "R" number of 1.38 was reported on April 12. An infection rate of over 1 shows that morbidity is increasing.
Nevertheless, despite the rise in the infection rate, the number of serious cases has not increased significantly so far. Forty new serious cases were reported in the past seven days, a 73.9% increase from the week before.
One more city – Rishon LeZion – was designated as "red" due to high infection rates. There remain seven "orange" localities with slightly lower morbidity.
While in "green" and "yellow" communities studies will continue uninterrupted, in "red" and "orange" cities that have a vaccination rate of less than 70% learning will continue via Zoom or outdoors.
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