Professor Dror Mevorach, who heads Hadassah Medical Center's coronavirus ward, spoke Friday morning with 103 FM Radio about the sharp rise in infections.
"From the perspective of the healthcare system, it could be that there will be a lockdown," Prof. Mevorach told 103 FM. "If things get to such proportions which require it, there will be no option and even the most liberal minister who does not want a lockdown will declare a lockdown."
"I can tell you that Hadassah is right now leading - and not in a good way - in the number of people hospitalized with Omicron around Israel. Right now we have 20 hospitalized patients, 16 of them with Omicron. We see the flow increasing. It's definitely concerning, and pushes us to prepare. We saw what happened in Europe, and what happened in South Africa."
At the same time, Prof. Mevorach admitted that the healthcare system had already been overwhelmed before Omicron arrived: "There was already a collapse of the healthcare system. No one likes to call it that, but during the third wave, there were about 1,200 hospitalized patients in serious condition, and there's no doubt that that hurt the patients' treatment. A collapse is not what happened in Italy, where people were dying in the streets."
Regarding the upcoming New Year's celebrations, he said, "These things are not simple. I think that we need to make a bit more restrictions - even though in the end the most important thing is the public's responsibility and understanding of the situation that we're in. So tonight I would not go to a New Year's party with 100 participants. You can take my recommendation or not - I think that this is everyone's responsibility.
When asked about the rumor that the Health Ministry would lead a "mass infection" model, Prof. Mevorach said, "I don't think so. The Health Ministry, according to the instructions which it is sending the hospitals, really does not want mass infection. It understands that this could exacerbate the hospitals' collapse, and therefore they're not going there. The policy is not a policy of mass infection."