A bleak model presented to Israeli ministers on Tuesday forecasts a new steep coronavirus wave in March-April, Channel 12 News reported.

The health officials who developed the model based their predictions on the possibility that the more contagious British variant, now responsible for about 40% of infections, will spread rapidly through the population and cause most, if not all, of new infections in two to three months.

According to the model, even with most high-risk members of Israel’s populations vaccinated by March, there will be about 8,000 new cases on a daily basis – enough to lead to hundreds of seriously ill coronavirus patients.

However, the report added that it is possible that Israelis who have been vaccinated will not only be protected from growing ill due to the virus but will be unable to transmit the virus to others. If this is so, the model’s bleak predictions may not come to fruition.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)