New daily coronavirus infections in Israel cross 1,000 mark again

THE number of new coronavirus infections reported in Israel within one day has exceeded the 1,000 mark for the first time in four months, the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday.

The ministry said that 1,118 new cases had been reported within 2 hours, the highest number since mid-March.

However, during the peak of the pandemic in January, the number of daily cases in Israel had risen to over 10,000.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had said at a consultation on Friday that the Delta variant of the virus was causing a worldwide increase in infections, “including in vaccinated countries such as the U , the US and Israel.” The current assessment is that “the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the Delta variant is weaker than we had hoped.” It is becoming clear that the problem cannot be solved by vaccination alone.

The Delta variant was first discovered in India and is considered particularly contagious.

In view of the new increase in infections, Israel wants to reintroduce restrictions on gatherings of more than 100 people indoors from Wednesday.

Once again, only those who have been vaccinated, recovered from the disease or people with negative test results will be allowed to attend such events. In addition, masks will again be compulsory in enclosed spaces.

Around 62 per cent of the country’s 9.3 million inhabitants have received a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, and more than 6 per cent have also received the second dose.

The number of seriously ill people has risen from 19 to 8 within a month. More than half of them have received at least one jab, according to the Ministry of Health. In January, the number of severely ill people was around 1,200.