Posted on 12/27/20
| News Source: i24
'A lockdown serves a double purpose, reducing infections and facilitating inoculations'
Israel will have largely defeated the coronavirus pandemic by the latter half of February 2021, a leading Israeli scientist said on Sunday.
Prof. Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a computational biologist, spoke to the Hebrew-language Yedioth Ahronot daily as Israel was entering its third nation-wide lockdown amid an accelerated vaccination drive.
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"A lockdown serves a double purpose – reducing infections and facilitating inoculations," Segal said. "If the vaccination rate reaches 100,000 shots administered weekly, cases will peak in about three weeks with about 900 patients hospitalized in serious condition and 1,000 more deaths until March. However, we are not expected to see any more serious coronavirus cases and deaths by mid-February."
"There's some 1.4 million senior citizens in Israel who make up the main risk group. If we keep up the pace, we can vaccinate the entire group within the next couple of weeks," he added. Read more at i24