Israel is headed toward an outbreak of coronavirus the scope of which will be larger than any the country has seen thus far, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday in an interview with Israel Radio.
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Bennett did not rule out the possibility of a lockdown as a possible way of containing the spread.
Bennett said that Israel had "an advantage over the rest of the world," in that Israel is "moments before the wave, which allows us an edge in acquiring drugs."
When asked if the government should encourage fines for people who opt out of the COVID vaccine, Bennett answered, "I don't believe in fines. Later on today, we will agree on the regulations for quarantine. At the moment, the line presented to me is that vaccinated individuals can move around freely, even if they might be exposed to someone with one variant or another.
"Therefore, I recommend that anyone who wants to continue their ordinary routines come and get vaccinated. We're about to see massive transmission, more than anything we've known. The storm is looming. We can provide everyone with protective gear," Bennett said.
Bennett said that his goal was to avoid lockdowns insofar as was possible. "During the Delta wave, we were criticized, but I stood up to the pressure. I'm not afraid to do what is right, but I don't know what the day will bring. We'll do what's right. I don't want to make declarations."
The prime minister was interviewed as the number of new coronavirus cases confirmed in Israel each day hit a three-month high of nearly 3,000. In the past 24 hours, 2.35% of COVID tests processed came back positive for a total of 2,952 new cases, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday morning. This is the highest number of new cases per day since Oct. 4.
As of Tuesday morning, there were 15,487 active or symptomatic cases. The number of COVID patients listed in serious condition held steady at 85, of whom 46 were in critical condition. A total of 38 hospitalized COVID patients were on ventilators, and 18 were attached to ECMO machines.
However, the reproduction rate jumped past 1.47, the highest R number in seven months, the ministry reported.
Monday saw the rate of vaccinations slow, with 10,340 people receiving the first dose of the vaccine, 7,086 receiving a second dose, and 8,007 rolling up their sleeves for a booster shot. The campaign to vaccinate the country's children still hasn't taken off. Only 4.59% of children ages five to 11 have been vaccinated. Among pre-teens and teens ages 12-15 58.9% have been vaccinated, and 66.1% of teens ages 16-19 have been vaccinated. More than two-thirds (68.3%) of young adults ages 20-29 have been vaccinated.
Since the pandemic reached Israel in early 2020, 8,242 Israelis have died of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, research by South African scientists suggests that Omicron infection enhances neutralizing immunity against the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, found that people who were infected with Omicron, especially those who were vaccinated, developed enhanced immunity to the Delta variant.
The analysis enrolled 33 vaccinated and unvaccinated people who were infected with the Omicron variant in South Africa.
While the authors found that the neutralization of Omicron increased 14-fold over 14 days after the enrollment, they also found that there was a 4.4 fold increase of Delta virus neutralization.
"The increase in Delta variant neutralization in individuals infected with Omicron may result in decreased ability of Delta to re-infect those individuals," the scientists said.
Alex Sigal, a professor at the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa, said on Twitter on Monday that if Omicron was less pathogenic as it looked from the South African experience, "this will help push Delta out."
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