COVID-19 Cases Reach 3,000 in Israel While Tech Companies Scramble for Solutions

JERUSALEM, Israel - As of Friday morning, 3,035 Israeli have tested positive for COVID-19 as the death toll continues to rise. Israel’s Soroka Medical Center reported on Friday morning that a 93-year-old man died, bringing the death toll up to 10.

Of the more than 3,000 Israelis with the virus, 49 are in serious condition and 60 are in moderate condition. The rest have mild symptoms.

Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, Director-General of the Health Ministry, told the Knesset’s coronavirus committee on Thursday that he believes 200 people will be in serious condition from COVID-19 a week from now.

The next two weeks will be “critical,” Bar Siman-Tov said Thursday, warning there is a high potential for further spread of the virus. “We’re really scared of Passover and Ramadan,” he said. “These crowds are the most dangerous.”

Israeli authorities are worried the country will run out of life-saving respirators.

“We won’t get to a situation where [we] need to choose to whom we administer artificial respiration,” Boaz Lev, who heads the Health Ministry’s pandemic unit told Israeli media Tuesday. He said the nation only has 4,000 respirators and is working to collect more.

Israeli tech companies are trying to find creative solutions.

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Lior Hessel, a high-tech engineer in Kiryat Bilaik, invented a simple ventilator that he uses for his agritech business Growponics. He told The Times of Israel, he is working to make his respirator available to all Israelis.

“I decided to do something instead of watching the news. I was a medic in the army. There, we used manual ventilators which are a similar shape and size as an American football, to squeeze air into the lungs,” he explained.“It’s a very standard piece of equipment and costs about $18, but your hand gets tired and there’s no way you can keep the same pace and pressure. I thought, as a high-tech engineer, that I should develop a pneumatic piston that does the job of a medic’s hand.”

Hessel already has a prototype and plans to start production soon. He has also spoken with some large hospitals to see if his invention can help solve a potential respirator shortage.

“It’s like there’s a tsunami on the way, it hasn’t come yet, and I want to prepare equipment for when it does,” he said.

In the war against the coronavirus, Israel is in a near-total lockdown.

"We want people to stay at home. We don't want people to go out unless absolutely necessary. And therefore, based on the new laws and orders, people will only be allowed to leave their houses until 100 meters,” said Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. “There'll be roadblocks that will be set up. People can only leave their houses for vital necessities such as supermarkets, grocery stores, and medical treatment and assistance if necessary."

New regulations released this week forbid:

• Employees from coming to work with a temperature of more than 38 degrees Celsius or 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 
• All non-essential shopping
• Trips to public parks and playgrounds   
• Traveling more than 100 meters (328 feet) from home

Police also closed Jerusalem’s iconic open-air market Mahane Yehuda and Muslim authorities have closed the Temple Mount indefinitely.  

Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcre, traditionally believed to be where Jesus died and rose again, has also been shuttered.

Trips are allowed to the grocery store, doctors and pharmacies.