The Health Ministry reported Thursday evening that the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in serious condition dropped to 385 — the first time the figure dropped to below 400 since August 9.
According to ministry data, about 75% of all severely ill patients were unvaccinated and 169 of them were connected to ventilators.
The ministry also reported that 83 of the patients hospitalized in serious condition are under the age of 50, with close to 90% of them being unvaccinated.
Meanwhile, 882 Israelis have tested positive for coronavirus out of some 51,000 tests conducted since midnight, putting Israel's contagion rate at 1.6%.
The death toll since the start of the pandemic stands at 7,966.
The Green Pass mandate was implemented in Israel too late despite health experts' opinion and came at the cost of many Israeli lives, said the head of Public Health at the Health Ministry earlier Thursday.
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Head of Public Health at the Health Ministry Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis
(Photo: Amit Shabi)
The Green Pass is a document that grants access to public venues for those who have either been fully inoculated against COVID-19 or have recently recovered from it.
"The Green Pass was put into effect too late. We recommended activating it earlier and maybe we could have saved some human lives,” said Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis.
"If the Green Pass was meant to force people to receive the vaccine, it should have never between scrapped in-between Israel’s COVID waves."