Israel PM Naftali Bennett warns of 'COVID-19 storm in coming weeks' amid Omicron surge

Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday, January 2 warned of a “coronavirus storm coming to us these very days” as the B.1.1.529 Omicron cases drastically upsurged, and despite that the country rolled out 4.2 million coronavirus booster shots. At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem earlier yesterday, the Israeli leader said that “these are [coronavirus infection] numbers that the world has not known, and that we also haven’t known.”

The Israeli leader added, that the government’s aim is “to allow the economy to function as much as possible while protecting the most vulnerable among us,” according to several reports. 

Omicron cases in Israel jumped from 700 to more than 4,000 in a matter of just a few days, and the country’s death toll surged to 8,244. The Israeli health officials, although, believed that the country may reach herd immunity once the peak subsides. Despite that Israel managed to stave off the Omicron B.1.1.529 infections some weeks ago, the country’s caseload once again mounted in the last two weeks.

Israel’s daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 driven by the highly transmissible Omicron are expected to reach record highs in the coming three weeks, but once the trajectory reaches the highest point, it could result in herd immunity, country’s director-general of the health ministry, Nachman Ash told 103FM Radio. 

“The numbers will have to be very high in order to reach herd immunity. This is possible but we don’t want to reach it by means of infections, we want it to happen as a result of many people vaccinating,” Nachman Ash, director-general of the health ministry who overlooks the coronavirus task force told 103FM Radio. 

Israel’s top health adviser expects cases to subside

Meanwhile, Israel’s top health adviser to the government Eran Segal, a computational biologist for the Weizmann Institute of Science, told Channel 12 that while the country is expecting a new record for COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks, once the Omicron wave peaks, the cases may subside. The serious COVID-19 cases with severe symptoms are at a manageable rate in the hospitals in Israel, he informed the network. The health official also expressed relief as Pfizer’s new antiviral COVID pill arrived in the country and a record number of Israelis are now getting vaccinated with booster shots, known to provide more protection against the complex Omicron variant.

The deadly delta wave caused 500,000 total cases in Israel but the fast-spreading Omicron has been doubling at a very fast rate, comparatively. “While we will break records in terms of cases and there will be a rise in the serious cases, [the latter] will not pass the records set during previous waves,” Segal told Channel 12.