12,119 corona tests were made yesterday of which 1,039 were positive

According to data from the Ministry of Health published this morning (Monday), 12,119 corona tests were deciphered, of which 1,039 were positive. The rate of positive tests was 9.2%, which means that one in 11 people was diagnosed with the corona virus. It also shows that in Beit Shemesh, Bnei Brak, Modi'in Illit and Beitar Illit - one in five subjects in the past week was positive for the virus.
According to the data, five more people died yesterday and the number of people killed in the plague rose to 473. 317 of the patients are defined as in critical condition. 104 of the patients breathed - a record for the second wave. The Ministry of Health "paints" six cities in red - that is, cities where information, testing and enforcement enforcement are required. These are Bnei Brak, Beitar Illit, Beit Shemesh, Modi'in Illit, Elad and Qalansawa.
In the past week, 1,704 new patients were diagnosed in Jerusalem (11.6% positive tests), in Bnei Brak 884 (19.1%) were diagnosed, in Beit Shemesh 410 (20%), in Tel Aviv 368 (5.2%), in Petah Tikva 302 (6.1%), in Ashdod 286 ( 6.8%), in Modi'in Illit 280 (22.2%), in Beitar Illit 272 (20.6%), in Holon 270 (8.1%), in Kalenswa 248 (16.1%), in Be'er Sheva 245, in Elad 235, in Haifa 195, in Rishon Lezion 178, in Lod 165 , In Ashkelon 164, in Netanya 152, in Ramla 143, in Taibeh 127, in Rehovot 126, in Ramat Gan 125, in Bat Yam 122 and in Nazareth 115 new patients were diagnosed in the last seven days.
In light of the surge in second-wave morbidity in recent weeks more and more corona wards in hospitals across the country are simply not coping. As of yesterday, four hospitals have already crossed the 100% occupancy threshold. Meaning: Having no choice, they are forced to start transferring Corona patients to hospitals in the central region.
One of the solutions to the cumulative load in recent weeks is the release of patients in a mild condition or geriatric patients for the purpose of making room for other patients in the corona wards. But new data from the Ministry of Health last night indicate that it has not yet been helpful in reducing the load. On the contrary: four hospitals have already crossed the 100% occupancy threshold: in Hadassah Ein Kerem and Shaare Zedek in Jerusalem, as well as in Shamir (Assaf Harofe) and Sheba (Tel Hashomer).
Yesterday, the new corona projector, Prof. Roni Gamzo, appointed a number of senior members of the health system to a team that will deal with him in stopping the plague.
"As part of the fight against coronary heart disease, one of the main goals is to prevent inadequacies in the health care system - in the community and in hospitals," Gamzo wrote. "Insufficiency is not just numbers of patients or critically ill patients, it is how the medical staff, the resilience of the organizations to all medical activities, including the medical routine. In advance) to insufficiency ".

The Ministry of Health is considering using a method that will significantly increase the number of corona tests in Israel, while saving time and without the need to increase the number of laboratories. The method is called "pooling", or "pooling", and in some situations it is estimated that it can increase the testing capacity in laboratories by more than 50%. However, the method also has disadvantages that lead to it being carefully examined, and the question is considered in which situations and levels of morbidity it is indeed worthwhile to put it to use.
The Ministry of Health has set up a committee on the collection of tests, but it is still unclear when decisions will be made on the subject. It is estimated that the issue will be promoted - but perhaps only after a moderation in the current wave of morbidity. The principle behind the method is not new, and is used in the fight against diseases such as influenza and AIDS. Countries like the US and Germany use this method for corona testing today.
Collecting samples allows you to test multiple samples of different people at once. The simplest method is to take a large number of pen samples - in this technique samples are taken from four, eight, or 32 subjects - and concentrate them in one test tube, on which only the test is performed (standard PCR test, of the type performed today).
If the co-test is found to be negative for corona, then all subjects can be informed that they are not carrying the virus, and proceed to further tests. On the other hand, if the joint test is positive, it means that at least one sample in test tube is positive for corona. Therefore, in such a case, individual tests will be performed for each of the specific samples.
This method has clear advantages over individual testing of each sample, as is done today. For the sake of illustration, a laboratory that is currently performing 5,000 tests a day will be able to perform 7,500-8,000 tests a day if it applies the "pulling" method - an improvement of 50% and more.
According to a recent report by the Corona National Information and Knowledge Center (operated by the Armed Forces), the collection method makes it possible to streamline and strengthen the testing system. "The method allows a large number of samples to be tested simultaneously, while saving time and material resources, as well as more efficient utilization of the analytical equipment," the report said. "Days in testing load situations, as they exist today - thus increasing the efficiency of amputating the adhesive chains."
Already at the beginning of the outbreak of the plague, researchers at several universities in Israel have proposed "pulling" methods for corona tests, and in recent months work has been done in several hospitals together with various academic laboratories to test these methods. Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem collaborated with the Hebrew University; The Technion with Rambam Hospital in Haifa; and Ben Gurion University with Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.
However, the issue was rejected and delayed - both because of the awkwardness of the decision-making processes in the Ministry of Health, but also because of a legitimate concern: the Ministry of Health and other bodies that managed the crisis feared that such an examination was not reliable enough. For example, in April, a report by the National Security Council's consultants, headed by Prof. Eli Waxman, stated that the idea of ​​collecting was "not holding water." An advanced pulling technique developed at the Weizmann Institute has also been rejected in the past by the Ministry of Health.
Another major difficulty stems from the need for laboratories to logistically adapt to the method - including adapting their equipment and purchasing new technological equipment; As well as dealing with logistical and computational issues that may arise with the dramatic increase in productivity that accompanies the polling method.
Yotam Shenhar, director of the laboratories department at Leumit Health Services, says that "there is no problem of sensitivity. The method has been tested and verified - but for us as a laboratory it requires the purchase of equipment, the establishment of a not simple process that requires both equipment and manpower. "But it also requires a lot of investment. So we have a lot of deliberation whether to get into this project. The tendency is positive, but it has not yet closed."
Although this method may be widely used in the future, in a situation of lower general morbidity (as it was in Israel after the closure between Purim and Passover in April-May before the second wave) - but on the other hand, in a situation of morbidity levels recorded in Israel before the second wave The demand for tests is not high.
AMN researchers wrote that "sampling is effective especially when it is necessary to monitor a large number of people, as it allows for rapid screening of negative aggregates, locating outbreaks, and examining the effectiveness of various policy measures." Therefore, the method may be well utilized. Polling even today, in situations where it is possible to estimate in advance, with a high degree of certainty, that a particular cluster of samples to be tested has a relatively low positive rate.