Shots up by 500% but not enough in ‘race against time,’ says Bennett
Cases at highest since April, but hospitalization rate stable
Israel registered another increase in daily cases on Monday, when some 283 people were identified as coronavirus carriers, according to a Tuesday update by the Health Ministry.
However, almost two weeks after the new outbreaks began, the country has not registered any rise in hospitalization or serious morbidity. The number of shots administered per day has surged by 500%, but that is “still not enough,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said while visiting a vaccination center in Holon with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz.
“Yesterday we broke a record of several months – 18,000 Israelis were vaccinated,” he said at the Maccabi Health Service Clinic. “This marks a 500% increase within a few days, thanks to the great response of the youth and the public to the national call to get vaccinated.
“The State of Israel is in a race against time. Although we have enough vaccines for everyone, they will expire at the end of July. Therefore, we have about
10 days to give the first vaccination,” he said.
Bennett reiterated that in order to meet the target, Israel should reach the goal of 30,000
shots administered every day, encouraging all families to get their children ages 12-15 inoculated.
Later on Tuesday, the prime
minister’s daughter, Michal, 14, received her first shot.
Israel at the moment has some 1.4 million Pfizer doses due to expire in one month.
On Monday the Health Ministry’s outgoing Director-General Chezy Levy told Channel 12 that there are ongoing negotiations with several countries for an exchange of vaccines in order to avoid wasting them. A similar agreement was originally stipulated with the Palestinian Authority who later backtracked from it.
Israel currently has some 1,500 active cases, up from less than 200 at the beginning of the month. Almost 800 of the active cases are schoolchildren.
The 283 cases identified on Monday mark the highest number since April. Nevertheless, only 45 people were hospitalized, 21 in serious condition, figures that are similar to the ones the country registered before the outbreaks began. Moreover, only seven people succumbed to the virus in June – the lowest monthly figure since the beginning of the pandemic.
At the pandemic’s peak in January, thousands of new cases and dozens of new victims were identified every day, and some 1,200 patients were in serious conditions.