The groom and 14 other participants became infected with the coronavirus during a wedding that lasted 6 days in the Arab village of Mizra, between Acre and Nahariyya east of the Coastal Highway.
The happy occasion that turned into a public health disaster caused an outbreak of corona in the locality, which then spread to a hospital in Nahariya which was already suffering from overcrowding in its corona ward.
The bride’s father works at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya and as a result of attending the lavish wedding 35 of his colleagues who came in contact with him were forced into isolation.
The medical center is under the heaviest pressure of corona patients in the country. The situation at the institution is so dire that the director, Prof. Masad Barhoum, declared on Monday that his hospital can no longer admit any more corona patients.
As of Tuesday morning, Israel has seen 3,992 new cases, with 524 in serious condition, 143 of whom are ventilated. 1,136 Israelis have died of the pandemic since its outbreak.
The most seriously hit municipalities, ahead of the total lockdown that begins on Friday, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, are Jerusalem – 4,956 active patients; Bnei Brak – 2,350; Ashdod – 1,506; Petah Tikvah – 1,018; Tel Aviv – 1,015; Beit Shemesh – 1,009; Modiin Ilit – 997; Netanya – 847; Ashkelon – 813; and Umm al-Fahm – 794. The rate of infections per 1,000 is the highest in Umm al-Fahm, a city in the Arab Triangle between Hadera and Afula – 13.96. In Jerusalem, for comparison, even though the number of infections is the highest in the country, the rate per 1,000 is 4.9.
The US will reach 200,000 deaths before Rosh Hashanah, with 6,749,289 cases since the outbreak. The rate of deaths per 1 million in the US is 600. In Israel, it is 124 per 1 million.
California, Texas, and Florida are now the worst-hit states in terms of total cases, each hovering around a quarter million patients. In NY State, which used to be the worst hit and suffered the highest number of deaths, the number of cases was just short of half a million.