Israel Passes 7,000 Coronavirus Deaths

YERUSHALAYIM
An Israeli receives his third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a center outside Yerushalayim city hall, Monday. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Over 7,000 people have died in the coronavirus pandemic in Israel, the Health Ministry said on Monday evening.

The ministry said that 7,030 Israelis with COVID-19 have died since the start of the pandemic. The first COVID death was registered in March 2020, and a year later, the country marked its 6,000th death.

The news comes as Israel prepares to open the new school year on Wednesday and officials have been expressing cautious optimism that infection levels can be held down sufficiently so as to avoid a lockdown during the Chagim. To that end, an intensive booster shot campaign has seen over two million Israelis get the shot, and some of the Health Ministry restrictions, such as the Green Pass, which limits access to public venues to those who have been vaccinated or recovered, have been reinstated.

The fatality rate had declined to zero as the Covid infection went down sharply in May. But since then, after the emergence of the Delta variant, an offshoot of the original coronavirus, new cases and serious illnesses have risen again.

More than 550 people died of COVID in August, over 100 of them in the last five days alone.

On average over the past month, 18 people with COVID-19 died per day, and 24 deaths were registered on Sunday. During the entire month of June, just seven COVID deaths were recorded, according to The Times of Israel.

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