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COVID Cases Rise in Israel Despite Successful Vaccine Rollout

Linda Gradstein

   JERUSALEM - Israel is the world leader in number of COVID-19
   vaccinations per person, with 15 percent of the population already
   vaccinated. At the same time, the number of coronavirus infections is
   spiraling and Israel is going into another tight lockdown.

   As of midnight on Thursday, all schools and nonessential businesses
   will close down, all gatherings will be outlawed, and Israelis are
   supposed to stay home for at least two weeks to try to get the numbers
   of new COVID-19 cases down. Shlomi Codish is the director General of
   the Soroka hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva.

   "Regretfully we're seeing a surge in patients that is beyond what we
   saw in the previous wave of COVID-19 illness. We're currently seeing
   7,000 new patients daily, over that, we're performing a lot of tests, a
   lot of vaccinations, but we're seeing a lot of seriously ill patients,"
   said Codish. "We're currently at 873 critically sick patients
   nationwide which is a number that is considered around the threshold of
   the health care system capacity."

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