[ad_1]
National coronavirus czar Nachman Ash expressed optimism on Sunday that the combination of lockdown measures and Israel’s rapid mass inoculation program was starting to impact the spread of the virus, slowing rates of infection.
Ash’s remarks came as the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients reached its highest level since the start of the pandemic in the country.
“We are in a race between morbidity and vaccinations,” he said.
Receive The Times of Israel daily edition via email and never miss our best articles Sign up for free
“There might be some optimism because the [morbidity] graph is not increasing exponentially, “but has started to bend in a straight line, Ash told reporters at a video conference about the virus. A straighter line indicates a constant infection rate, rather than an increasing rate.
“It could be the effect of the vaccines or the partial lockdown over the past two weeks,” he said. “We estimate that the first effect of vaccinations is after about 10 days [from when the shots were given], so we should already see it.
The change could alter conditions set by officials to ease the lockdown, started two weeks ago and further tightened on Friday.
“If we see a drop in the number of critically ill patients, we can open things up even with a higher number of active patients than we had originally planned,” he said.
Another consideration is the arrival in Israel in the past two weeks of mutated strains of the virus which, without being more deadly, are more contagious. Ash roughly estimated that of the new cases in this period, 10-20 percent were from a mutated strain first detected in Britain, and a much smaller number were from another strain found in South Africa. South.
“This is something that we are trying very hard to contain and that we rush to cases to isolate them,” he said.
Sheba medical staff receive second round of COVID-19 vaccine at Sheba Medical Center Tel haShomer outside Tel Aviv on January 10, 2021. (Miriam Alster / Flash90)
The national immunization program hit a milestone on Sunday as those who already received the first round of the two-dose inoculation of Pfizer three weeks ago began receiving their second injection alongside those who received their first. vaccine. So far, the program, which has focused on health workers, people over 60 and at-risk groups, has given the first shots to around one-fifth of 9.29 million citizens. Israelis.
President Reuven Rivlin was among those who got their second chance on Sunday.
Ash said that from Wednesday to Friday of this week, teachers will start receiving vaccines, starting with special education ones. In addition, if there are enough vaccines available, vaccination will also be open to those over 55, and then to those over 50.
“It depends on how many vaccines we get,” he says.
He backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s estimate that by the end of March, all citizens in the county over the age of 16 will have been vaccinated. Netanyahu was at Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday to greet the arrival of another plane loaded with vaccines. The rapid depletion of stocks had threatened to slow down the vaccination campaign, but Israel reached a deal with Pfizer to speed up the arrival of more vaccination units.
Health systems are currently successfully vaccinating 150,000 people a day, but the goal is to increase that number to 200,000, Ash said, so that they can both continue to vaccinate new people and administer the second vaccine to those who have. already had the first one.
He said in the next few days the country would also start using the Moderna vaccine, which is treated differently from the Pfizer vaccine, offering more units of vaccine in each vial and a longer shelf life after being thawed for use. . Both vaccines should be used within days of removing them from the freezers.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein has reportedly asked ministry officials to consider the possibility of continuing vaccinations overnight, keeping vaccination centers open for longer.
Record number of seriously ill people
Along with optimism over Israel’s vaccination campaign, however, the number of coronavirus patients in serious condition reached 1,056 on Sunday evening, the highest number since the start of the pandemic in the country at the start. of this year.
Nearly a quarter of critically ill COVID-19 patients in Israeli hospitals are under the age of 60, the Ynet news site reported on Sunday, citing data from the Ministry of Health.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein (right) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion airport as a new batch of Pfizer vaccine arrives on January 10, 2021 (Screen capture: Facebook)
According to reported data, some 24 percent of patients are under the age of 60. This includes 14.6% aged 50-59, 5.4% aged 40-49, and 2.1% aged 30-39.
In addition, there are three men and one woman in their twenties, three teenage girls and two other girls under the age of 10 who are all critically ill.
Data showed that 76% of critically ill people are aged 60 and over, with 6.3% over 90, 21.3% between 80 and 89, 26.7% between 70 and 79 and 22.7% from 60 to 69 years old.
There were 240 patients on ventilators, 76% of whom were over 60 years old. Among the others are a man in his twenties and two girls under 10 who are also on ventilators.
As the third wave of the pandemic continues to wreak havoc in the country, the health ministry has reported an increase of 36 severe cases in the past 24 hours and almost 300 in a week.
Since the start of the virus epidemic in the country, 489,995 people had been diagnosed with the virus by Sunday evening and 3,663 had died. There were 68,681 active cases in the country.
[ad_2]
Source link
