PM: Omicron spreading with all its might, Israel could reach 50,000 cases daily

60% of Israelis support imposing restrictions on those unvaccinated for COVID, poll shows

Health Ministry Sunday morning reports 17,521 new COVID-19 diagnoses over the past 24 hours following some 151,000 tests, marking a positive test rate of 11.71%. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vows to provide free rapid antigen tests for children. Meanwhile, a professor in Cyprus claims to have discovered a “Deltacron” strain, which combines the Omicron and Delta variants.

By  Ariel Kahana , Maytal Yasur Beit-Or and Assaf Golan, ISRAEL HAYOM

A COVID test being processed at a laboratory in central Israel | File photo: Gideon Markowicz

The Health Ministry reported Sunday morning 17,521 new COVID-19 diagnoses over the past 24 hours following some 151,000 tests, marking a positive test rate of 11.71%.

The number of COVID-19 patients listed as seriously ill rose to 206, according to the ministry.

While the daily tally of 17,521 new cases Saturday was a slight dip from Friday’s record-setting 18,831 new cases, the test positivity rate reached levels not seen in over a year.

Sunday’s tally of serious cases of COVID was nearly double the 112 patients in serious condition recorded a week earlier. The number of hospitalizations rose from 338 a week ago to 524. The dramatic hike in morbidity is driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

With the new cases, there were 115,010 active patients in the country.

The death toll remained at 8,259, with no change since Friday.

The total number of COVID-19 cases registered worldwide since the start of the pandemic topped 300 million on Friday, while a researcher in Cyprus reported the discovery of a coronavirus strain that combines the Delta and Omicron variants.

Amid the gigantic upsurge in infections, the government convened Sunday morning to discuss several issues, including COVID public safety policies.

“The Omicron wave is here and as we all can sense, is spreading with all its might,” said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who warned last week that Israel could reach 50,000 daily cases at the height of the wave.

The prime minister addressed Israel’s inventory of rapid antigen tests amid the change in testing protocols announced last week, vowing to provide free antigen tests for Israeli schoolchildren.

Vaccinated individuals can also conduct rapid antigen tests at home, but there have been severe shortages in test kits in recent days as Israelis raided shops for them.

According to Bennett, 1.5 million testing kits were also being provided to nursing homes.

“We are making sure to provide the most hermetic blanket of protection and defense possible for the nursing homes, the elderly, in the aim of protecting the most vulnerable who can develop severe symptoms and require hospitalization,” he said. “This is parallel to the very successful operation to provide booster shots to [people 60 and up] – nearly one-quarter of a million people have been vaccinated [with a fourth vaccination dose]. This is a wonderful response that will spare a lot of severe illness and suffering.”

Last week Israel began distributing extra fourth boosters to its elderly population and health workers, the first country in the world to do so. As of Saturday, 254,000 people had gotten the second booster.

Discussing antigen tests in schools, Bennett said, “We are attentive to the public’s distress and are living it first-hand. I, too, have four children to test at home. I can tell you that as of now the students will receive free testing kits. Every child in Israel – in pre-school and elementary school, along with the teaching staff – will receive three testing kits in the coming days. We made sure in advance to transfer stocks to the schools precisely for such a situation, and now we are making use of these kits to relieve the burden on parents.”

The government has urged the public to vaccinate and shots are available to all those aged five or above.

Of Israel’s 9.5 million population, 6,621,321 have had at least one vaccine dose, Sunday’s Health Ministry figures showed. Of those, 5,963,196 have also had a second shot and 4,322,783 a booster as well.

In Israel, 174 communities were designated as “red,” or in other words with high morbidity rates, 35 were “orange” and 28 were “yellow.” Last week the number of red communities was just 57.

The coronavirus cabinet is expected to convene on Tuesday evening at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

Earlier Sunday, Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash discussed the credibility of the rapid antigen tests, telling Army Radio: “I suspect we’ll recommend also testing the mouth, and then the nose. People must make sure to follow the instructions for these tests, which will raise the sensitivity of these tests and their accuracy.

“All the talk about us ‘giving up’ is absolutely untrue. We need to suit ourselves to the level of morbidity, and any changes we make are to focus our efforts on [treating] the severely ill,” he said.

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Meanwhile, Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, called the combined strain he discovered “Deltacron,” due to its Omicron-like genetic signatures within the Delta genomes, Bloomberg reported.

So far, Kostrikis and his team have found 25 cases of the virus, according to the report. It’s still too early to tell whether there are more cases of the strain or what impacts it could have.

“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” against the two dominant strains, Delta and Omicron, Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. He believes Omicron will also overtake Deltacron, he added.

With Omicron heralding the pandemic’s latest wave, many countries are reporting record numbers of infections.

Over 13.5 million virus cases were detected worldwide in the past week, a massive rise of 64% over the previous seven days, averaging almost two million new infections per day.