A 38-year-old man with no underlying medical conditions died Thursday of COVID-19 related issues; he was hospitalized at Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva.
The news comes as the nation’s municipal leaders mull the option of offering vaccines for students at public schools.
In Bat Yam, Mayor Tzvika Brot ordered schools in his city on Thursday to prepare to vaccinate their students.
Brot said he had not received any official instructions to provide COVID-19 vaccination jabs in the city’s public schools.
That issue is still being debated by Israeli government ministers who participate in the Coronavirus Cabinet.
In particular Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton has said she opposes the proposal to vaccinate Israeli children in the country’s school systems. Schools are for educating, she said earlier this week, not for administering vaccines.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, however, supports the plan, and has said the more children who receive inoculations – no matter how – the better.
On Wednesday, 2,165 new cases of the coronavirus were diagnosed out of 102,524 tests carried out, with the positivity rate at 2.35 percent.
On Thursday morning, there were 15,292 active cases of the virus in the Jewish State. At least 275 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in medical centers around the country, including 159 patients listed in serious condition. Of those, 33 were listed in critical condition; 26 patients are relying on ventilators to maintain life support.
Including three people who died Wednesday from the virus, Israel’s death toll from the coronavirus has reached 6,463.