Israel Tops 5,000 New COVID Cases, 100 Serious Patients

The Health Ministry reported Motzoei Shabbos that 5,466 Israelis tested positive for coronavirus out of some 139,000 tests carried out over the previous 24 hours, putting the country’s contagion rate at 3.96% — the highest on record in three months.

Israelis hospitals were treating 101 COVID-19 patients in serious condition, 37 of whom were connected to ventilators.

“Here and all over the world, we have lost control of the spread of the pandemic,” said Prof. Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and an advisor to the government.

“Already today there is a high chance of encountering an infected individual,” he wrote on Friday. “In three days the chance will double. In a week, it will be four times more than today. The best protection against a serious illness is the vaccine, and there has never been a better time to get vaccinated.”

Health authorities call for respect for health curbs and maintaining social distancing as the omicron variant continues to spread through the country.