Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash signed an order on Wednesday allowing schools to vaccinate students during school hours, ending a political drama caused by Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton’s opposition to the measure. Shasha-Biton, who has a long history of opposing coronavirus regulations, refused to permit students to be vaccinated during school hours, saying it would be “criminal” to do so. However, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and other senior health officials asserted that vaccinating students in schools, where students have received other vaccinations in the past, is the most efficient way to stem the infection rate among the younger population.

A senior health expert said on Thursday that Israel’s coronavirus spread is currently one of the highest in the world, Ynet reported. The report comes as the Health Ministry confirmed over 600 seriously ill coronavirus patients on Thursday morning, the number that the Health Ministry earlier this month determined as the threshold for a lockdown. Since Israel’s hospital can only properly treat 1,200 seriously ill COVID patients, over 600 patients mean that the hospitals will be at maximum capacity within weeks. Prof. Ran Balicer, a senior medical advisor to the coronavirus cabinet, thinks that Israel can even reach 1,200 seriously ill patients within days as it is currently averaging about 100 new seriously ill COVID patients per day.

Posters went up in the more Chareidi sections of Beit Shemesh accusing United Hatzalah of transgressing the prohibition of yichud by training female EMTs to respond to medical emergencies. Extremist elements in the Chareidi community of Ramat Beit Shemesh posted the pashkvillim that declared that having women respond to emergencies, causes issues of Yichud (seclusion). The posters went on further to claim that female EMTs are committing a double sin both by being involved in Sherut Leumi (national service) and also by transgressing “Abizrahu D’Giluy Arayos”. United Hatzalah refutes these claims as they utilize volunteers over the age of 21 and does not have national service volunteers responding to emergencies as EMTs.

Israel’s coronavirus czar Salman Zarka said on Wednesday that Israel is at war with COVID as Israel grapples with a mounting fatality rate. Israel has confirmed over 120 coronavirus deaths in the past week alone, twice the number of deaths in the entire month of July and over 15 times the number of deaths in the month of June. Speaking at a hearing of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee regarding restrictions intended to quell the virus outbreak, Zarka said: “I think that we’re in a real war. We’re in a critical situation until erev Rosh Hashana or chalilah, the coronavirus will prevail and we’ll reach scenarios we don’t want, like during the first or second lockdown.” “I’m not trying to scare anyone, this is the data,” Zarka said.

Over 1 million Israelis have received a third COVID vaccine dose, the government announced on Monday. A few weeks ago Israel became the first country in the world to offer COVID booster shots, beginning with those over 60 and the immunocompromised. Last week, the shots became available to those over 50. Israel has now vaccinated over half of the 1.9 million Israelis over the age of 50 who received the first two vaccine doses. Preliminary Health Ministry data shows that Israelis who received the booster shot are 2.5 times more protected from COVID infection than those who received only the first two doses. “A very nice achievement but not enough,” Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said.

Israeli public health officials said on Monday that several dangerous COVID variants have begun to develop in a number of countries around the world. One variant, the Lambda variant, has been spreading rapidly throughout South America, especially in Peru, and has been found in 29 countries, including Germany, Spain, the UK and the US, where at least 152 cases have been reported in California. The Lamda variant is thought to be less infectious than the Delta variant but more infectious than COVID-19. However, preliminary research has shown that it is at least somewhat resistant to existing vaccines.

A Yisrael Hayom report on Tuesday revealed that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett instructed senior Health Ministry officials to compromise on standards of healthcare in order to reach “certain numbers.” Dr. Miki Halbertal, director of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, participated in meetings last week with Bennett and senior officials from the Health and Finance Ministries. Halbertal said that during a discussion about the capability [or incapability] of hospitals to treat hundreds to thousands of severely ill coronavirus patients, the atmosphere became very tense, with Bennett and other senior government officials placing a tremendous amount of pressure on coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash and other senior health officials. “We need to reach these numbers,” Bennett said.

About 500 Israeli children aged 5-11 received their first coronavirus vaccine dose over the past two weeks, Yisrael Hayom reported on Monday. No significant side effects have been reported and some Kupot Cholim reported no side effects at all. All the children have been scheduled to receive their second dose. Israel began vaccinating children aged 5-11 at high-risk at the beginning of August under special approval of the Health Ministry. Most of the children suffer from serious background illnesses, such as respiratory diseases, cancer, severe obesity, cardiomyopathy, or immunodeficiency.

Israel continues to see a continuous rise in COVID cases and seriously ill patients, with 877 coronavirus patients hospitalized and over 524 patients in serious condition on Sunday, the first time since March that the number of seriously ill patients has surpassed 500. Israel’s ICUs and coronavirus wards are already overflowing and at least one hospital, Assaf HaRofeh in Be’er Yaakov, is not accepting any more coronavirus patients. Ambulances are waiting outside hospitals for hours until beds can be freed for new patients. Also, according to a Kan News report, hospitals will be canceling elective medical procedures in order to free staff members to work in COVID wards.

An interesting phenomenon has been noticed about Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s recent speeches and media posts about the coronavirus – an avoidance of the word “COVID” replaced by the word “Delta.” For example, Bennett published a long Facebook post on Motzei Shabbos outlining his strategy to fight the alarming surge in coronavirus cases. He began the post by writing: “I would like to share our national plan to deal with the ‘Delta wave’ sweeping the world.