Only four new coronavirus cases were identified on Sunday, the Health Ministry announced on Monday, while according to Israeli media, the ministry is finalizing the date to start the vaccination campaign for children ages 12-15, which is expected to commence on Sunday.
The number marks the lowest since the beginning of March 2020, when Israel still believed it could keep the disease in the country under control and be spared from its most deadly consequences.
Four weeks ago, some 50 people had tested positive for the virus, a month earlier there were 196, while at the peak of the pandemic in January the figure occasionally reached 10,000.
While according to the ministry’s update, the number of daily cases will increase again on Monday – as of 11 a.m. some 12 people had already been identified as positive – in the past week the highest number of new cases registered in 24 hours was 22.
While health authorities and experts believe that Israel will not be able to reach a situation where the virus completely disappears, with some 350 active cases left – compared to the 88,000 when the disease was raging in the country – the likelihood of being infected remains extremely low.
For this reason, starting from Tuesday, all the special regulations to cope with the virus – caps on gatherings or customers in venues, requirements to present a green pass or to get tested to access activities – will be canceled. Only the requirement to wear a mask indoors and the border restrictions will remain to remind Israelis of the threat of the virus.
According to the Health Ministry update, some 10,304 people entered the country from abroad on Sunday and nobody that had arrived in the past 10 days tested positive.
Some 49 patients were in serious condition as of Monday – a number that has remained somewhat stable for the past few days. Of these, 87.5% had not been vaccinated. In January, almost 1,200 patients were in serious conditions.
In addition, only 2 patients succumbed to the virus in the past week, the lowest in a year.
In light of the encouraging data, the Health Ministry is taking time before authorizing vaccines for children ages 12-15 in order to reach the broadest consensus around it.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization on May 11 to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – the one that has been used in Israel – to that age group.
While the vast majority of experts support the vaccine, health authorities are considering several elements, including the data of the hundreds of thousands of children already vaccinated in the US and a possible connection between the vaccine and myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. According to a Health Ministry official, they consider it crucial to show the public that the procedure is thorough and to craft the message in the best possible way.
According to The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv, which quoted sources within the Health Ministry and the healthcare providers that are responsible for carrying out the inoculation, the vaccination campaign for children will start on Sunday.