As Israel’s daily COVID cases continue to mount and the number of seriously ill patients skyrockets to over 500 (from just 100 a few weeks ago), Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash said on Tuesday that the health system is under intense strain. “The strain on hospitals and the health system…is immense,” he said. “The whole system is stretched to the limit with these numbers. The hospitals have the capacity to accept patients but at the cost of reducing other activities.” Ash added that he thinks the number of cases will peak in about another week but Israel still faces a difficult two or three weeks ahead. Prof. Eran Segal of Weizmann Institute also said on Tuesday that the number of cases will soon peak and estimated that about two million Israelis have contracted the Omicron COVID variant so far. “About three weeks ago, we estimated that the increase would continue for three weeks, after which we would see a decrease,” Segal said in an interview with Yediot Achranot. “That’s happening now – just as we predicted.” “In terms of daily verified cases, we’re in second place in the world, below Ireland.” “We’ve confirmed over 500,000 cases during the Omicron wave, which is the same number we confirmed during the Delta wave. Since the number of people who are actually infected is three to four times higher than the number of confirmed cases, my estimate is that about 1.5 million to two million Israelis have been infected with Omicron.” Segal added that the number of cases should peak in the next few days, followed by a decrease. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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