Israel’s R number – the transmission rate of the COVID virus – passed 1 in Israel for the first time since January, amid rising daily infection numbers, according to health ministry data on Saturday.
The transmission rate represents the number of people infected per confirmed patient, on average. Any number greater than 1 indicates that the epidemic is increasing.
The latest development comes as rising cases raise fears of a resurgent pandemic.
According to the ministry, the R number stood at 1.02 on Saturday, and 7,080 new COVID cases were confirmed on Friday – the highest single-day figure in more than 10 days.
Daily cases have been trending steadily upward in recent days.
The total number of active cases in the country stood at 43,600 on Saturday. The number of severe cases stood at 326, of which 133 were linked to ventilators. The death toll stood at 10,417.
“We’re really heading for some sort of increase in new cases and some sort of spread, and that could be what we see,” said Prof. Weisman Institute, a top government adviser on the pandemic. Aaron Segal told Channel 12 News. Saturday. “We are seeing this in some European countries.”
Sehgal said the resurgence is most likely due to the Omicron subvariant ba.2, which is known to be more infectious.
People wearing face masks walk in Jerusalem on February 10, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Sehgal said this may be partly the result of the public “maintaining a full normal daily routine and perhaps even less strict.”
He stressed that “this variant is just as violent as Omicron – meaning less than the original variant and the delta strain.
“And it is also estimated that about half of the country’s population was infected with the Omicron variant. We know that a person who has been cured of an omicron can be reinfected with BA.2, but [the chances are] still small.”
Sehgal said that considering all of these variables, he believed that if a new wave were to emerge, it would not be of the same size as the Omicron version.
BA.2 has been documented to re-infect some people after an initial case of Omicron. There is mixed research on whether it causes more severe disease than Omicron, but vaccines appear to be just as effective against it.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that Israel would retain its indoor mask mandate for at least another month. Most other COVID-related public health orders have been withdrawn.
