With the Omicron variant driving coronavirus infections in Israel to new record highs, a member of the government's pandemic advisory team warned Wednesday that the country could see 500-800 serious patients within the next few weeks.
Hebrew University's Prof. Doron Gazit told Ynet if the government does not implement tougher health measures soon, Israel will get to 20,000 new COVID patients on daily basis within weeks.
"Given what we are seeing around the world and trying to calculate what the situation will be like with hospitalizations by mid-January, a variable we see is rising, our most optimistic assessment is that Israel will see between 500-800 serious cases by January 20," Prof. Gazit said.
"The one element we are unsure of is how long a serious patient will be hospitalized for. In the past, the average hospitalization stood at around 10 days, but we are hoping that number will be lower."
While this is still far from the record 1,200 serious cases Israel saw during past infection waves, Gazit emphasized the amount of patients will be too much for hospitals to handle, given that many are already treating a similarly serious uptick in seasonal ailments, such as flu.
He also said that the advisory team is expecting a rise in pediatric coronavirus hospitalizations since many children under the age of 11 are not vaccinated.
Gazit said that while coronavirus illness is milder in children, the large number of infected, along with the fact that unvaccinated children do not have the same protection as those who have been inoculated, may lead to 3-5% of the severely ill being kids.
He also urged for the general public to change its behavior and act more responsibly.
"Over the past two weeks we are seeing Omicron cases multiplying every three days and this trend is still ongoing," he said. "We don't see any reason for this trend to change given the public' behavior and no restrictions being implemented by the government."