Officials said the mandate for indoor mask weighing, and offered COVID shots for the youngest children
With coronavirus infection rates rising, health officials are reportedly to be discussing a return to indoor masking and the possibility of approving COVID-19 vaccines for infants and preschoolers.
Israel officially lifted the indoor mask mandate on April 24, scrapping one of the few remaining coronavirus restrictions still in effect after more than two years of the pandemic.
According to an unnamed Health Ministry official quoted by public broadcaster Kan on Sunday, a return to the measure is under review and a decision will be made next week.
Since the mask requirement was first imposed in April 2020 and before it was lifted a few months ago, Israelis were required to wear face coverings indoors on all but 10 days last June, when the mandate was briefly lifted before being brought back quickly as it burgeoned cases at the time.
In addition, officials will also consider approving COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest children after U.S. regulators Friday gave their approval for the first vaccinations for infants and preschoolers.
According to news site Ynet, the Israeli Ministry of Health will discuss the matter at a meeting on Tuesday.
“Since there’s already an FDA recommendation, I don’t see why we shouldn’t do the same here,” said pediatrician Dr. Clalit Health Services’ Doron Dushnitsky, according to the report.
A six-year-old receives the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech in Hartford, Connecticut, November 2, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
The potential policy changes come as health experts have warned a new wave of infections appears to be underway.
As of Sunday morning, 158 patients were in serious condition, 48 of whom were classified as critical.
A week ago there were 106 patients in serious condition.
The reproduction number (R) saw a small drop, reaching 1.3 on Sunday – down from 1.31 on Saturday. At the beginning of the month it was 1.52. The R number is based on rates from ten days earlier and measures how many people each coronavirus carrier infects on average, with any number above 1 meaning the spread of COVID-19 is increasing.
It started to climb above 1 for the first time in mid-May after staying below that level for almost two months.
The health ministry said Sunday that 4,931 people tested positive for the virus a day earlier, compared with 3,339 new cases diagnosed a week earlier and 1,575 cases diagnosed two weeks ago. Test rates tend to decrease over the weekend.
The country’s death toll since the pandemic began stood at 10,896.
A Kaplan Hospital medical worker at the coronavirus ward on January 18, 2022. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
While Israel has been seeing rising infection numbers for several weeks, a surge in critically ill patients is a real concern as the country grapples with the spread of the new variant BA.5, with experts warning hospitals may have to reopen COVID wards if the Case is situation persists.
“The real clue is the number of patients in serious condition, because we know that a lot of the morbidity goes undetected because people don’t go and get tested, and that should also be taken into account,” says immune system expert Prof. Das’s Cyrille Cohen announced Bar Ilan University last week.
Cohen advised wearing masks in crowded places like buses and malls to avoid further cases of infection.
Last week, coronavirus czar Prof Salman Zarka said the new BA.5 variant is rapidly gaining traction and is more vaccine-resistant than previous strains.
He said BA.5 will replace Omicron as the dominant variant and will continue to gain ground.
However, other experts have said everything should be considered – including the possibility of offering a fifth vaccination to the elderly and immunocompromised.
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