Prof. Galia Rahav: "Hospitals are full to the brim, I don't remember such numbers"'

January 13, 2022   

Prof. Galia Rahav, head of the infectious diseases unit at Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital, spoke this morning (Thursday) with Nissim Mashal and Guy Peleg on 103FM about the coronavirus situation and the records of infected people that are being broken every day - and said: "We are really feeling the increase in the hospital, it is full from mouth to mouth.". Where are the coronavirus tests performed? What test is done and when? All the information 7 million American children who were vaccinated are not wrong: We got vaccinated and you should get vaccinated too Has it been three months since your second vaccination? This is how you will protect yourself from the virus She explained: "The estimate is that it is 3 times more, that there are currently 120,000 infected, because neither tests are being conducted nor home tests are being conducted that are not being reported. The numbers are definitely high, we feel it very much in the hospital, that there is a very impressive increase in the number of hospitalized and seriously ill patients. This time there are more people with corona hospitalized and not because of corona. Let's say that the intensive care unit is definitely currently, fortunately, not full at all with corona patients, but with other patients." She emphasized: "I am saying that the hospitals are completely full with hospitalizations, quantities that I don't remember when we had, there have not been such numbers for a long time. The numbers are very high. It is true that in intensive care, it is not that it is empty right now, it is full of flu patients and patients with all kinds of other respiratory infections, but not with corona." According to her, "The hospitals are full of corona patients but not in intensive care, they are still seriously ill. Let's not get confused. The situation in the hospitals right now, we are coping with it but it is not that crazy. There is full-full occupancy." When asked whether she expects that we will soon reach the peak of the wave after which the morbidity will decline, she said: "There are a lot of 'maybes' here. This is our problem with this virus. Maybe there will not be a more severe disease because we don't know exactly. We are the first country in the world to receive a booster six months ago and the older people no longer have a booster, they received the fourth vaccine and we don't know exactly how and how much it protects, it makes sense." When asked whether she recommends getting vaccinated with the fourth vaccine - she replied: "It depends on who, for elderly and immunocompromised people, I definitely recommend it, I don't recommend it right now for the entire population because we don't know exactly the data on the fourth vaccine in terms of effectiveness." She emphasized: "I was vaccinated, that says it all.".