Hospital chiefs warn third wave of pandemic shaping up to be worst yet

Israeli hospital chiefs are warning that they are seeing signs that Israel is entering the worst wave of the pandemic yet, with new cases flooding their facilities.

Prof. Pierre Singer, head of intensive care at Beilinson Medical Center in Petah Tikva, tells Channel 13: “We are at the very beginning of a very serious wave.”

He says hospitals are seeing “younger cases. We have patients who are 48, 32, 55. I see whole families infected. People have not understood this disease is infectious, dangerous, it’s not over.”

Salman Zarka, director of Safed’s Ziv Medical Center, says the disease is “hitting again, more than in previous waves. Patients are coming to the hospital in very serious condition… We still have a few months in which we must keep the rules… it’s such a shame, so needless to get sick now, when we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Shlomi Codish, director of Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center, describes “a steep, sharp rise in the number of patients. The rise is steeper than during the second wave and we expect that if it continues this way we’ll be at a much more severe condition at the end of this wave.”