Omicron Wave Appears to Slow in Israel

Health officials reportedly believe the omicron wave in Israel is on the way down, but that the number of patients in serious condition could still continue to rise.

The rate of serious cases tends to lag behind new infections due to the time it takes for patients to deteriorate.

Senior officials in the Health Ministry additionally made the assessment that some three million Israelis have contracted the omicron variant alone, a number that would far outstrip the 2.6 million total cases Israel has confirmed since February 2020, Kan News reported on Thursday.

Meanwhile, on Friday morning, there were 946 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in serious condition, according to Health Ministry data. It was a slight drop from Thursday when there were 960 serious cases.

On Thursday, 57,563 new cases were recorded, the ministry said. With some 265,000 PCR and antigen tests conducted, the positivity rate stood at 25.69 percent, becoming the highest daily rate since the onset of the pandemic.

Earlier this week daily cases had surpassed 85,000, but have since slowed slightly, alongside changes in testing protocols.

The R-value, the reproduction rate of the virus measuring the average number of people each positive person infects, dropped to 1.05.

Last month, the R-value was up to 2.12, but has since been on the decline. The transmission rate is based on data from 10 days earlier and values above 1 show infections are spreading — the higher the number, the greater the rate.

Friday’s data showed 483,228 Israelis were actively infected with COVID-19, and of them, 2,483 were hospitalized.

Over the past week, more than 503,816 Israelis have tested positive for COVID, with experts believing that the actual figure could be several times higher.

Also in the past week, 149 Israelis with COVID have died — a 60.2% increase over the previous week. A month ago, the average weekly death toll was less than 10.