Edelstein: Knesset is leading country to lockdown
Gov’t to name Barbash as coronavirus czar • Health officials expect 1,000 serious patients in three weeks
The country is heading toward a complete lockdown, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Tuesday. Hospital services could break down within the next three weeks, senior health experts predicted.
Nevertheless, the Knesset voted to overturn the government’s restrictions on restaurants.
Also, at long last, it seems the country could have a coronavirus czar.
“The conduct of the Knesset coronavirus committee will inevitably lead us to a complete lockdown,” Edelstein said at a press conference in Haifa following a visit to Rambam Health Care Campus’s new underground coronavirus unit.
He said he “does not know from where the optimism of some people who talk about the slowdown in the rate of infection comes from. The numbers are still very worrying.”
Meanwhile, 1,854 Israelis tested positive for coronavirus on Monday and another 1,203 between midnight and Tuesday night, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday as of press time. The number of serious patients was 256, including 77 who were intubated. Some 424 Israelis have died from the virus.
The number of serious patients could spike within the next two to three weeks, Health Ministry senior officials said. In 20 days, there could be 1,000 Israelis in serious condition, according to their models, while the health system could only provide optimal care to about 750 of them, they said.
“We are galloping into the abyss, where we cannot avoid reaching a state where intensive-care units will be at maximum occupancy, and doctors will have to decide who to ventilate and who to let die,” Ben-Gurion University of the
The device, which is about the size of a computer mouse, can identify and classify evidence of a virus in the body in less than a second, using a sample of fluid – blood serum or saliva – inserted into a disposable test cuvette, a release explained.
In spectroscopy, a sample is tested with a broadband light source, Newsight CEO Eli Assoolin said. The light that returns from the sample is analyzed to determine its wavelength content.
“We collect the spectral signature after the light is absorbed in the sample, and then we can analyze the content of it,” he said, noting that spectral-analysis technology has already been used to identify certain human diseases and abnormalities.
“Basically, on one side, you have the source of light, and on the other side, you have the sensor chip – a sensitive and fast camera that can see different wavelengths. In the middle, you put the sample,” Assoolin said.
Sheba doctors in the Infectious and Tropical Diseases Department are already working with the company, and initial feasibility studies of the device have been successful.
One study found that it can separate between alpha-coronaviruses (Alpha-CoV) and beta-coronaviruses (Beta-CoV) at almost 100% accuracy. Studies conducted on people infected with Dengue virus were also found to be extremely accurate.
“We proved that we can differentiate between people who are sick and those who are not,” Assoolin said.
Now, Sheba and Newsight are starting to test COVID-19.
Newsight has been around for four years. Its machine-vision products are already integrated in dozens of different devices and solutions in the automotive, robotics and advanced industrial-manufacturing fields.
Although hyperspectral cameras are widely used in hospitals, they have found a limited market due to their high cost, which generally ranges from $50,000 to well over $1 million. Newsight’s innovation is that it has taken this technology and implemented it in a single, cost-effective silicon chip that can be used at any point of care – even people’s homes, Assoolin said.
Moreover, the chip is “artificial-intelligence ready,” meaning, the data set generated by the chip can be used to train two models – one that identifies infected people and one that identifies people without the virus. Then, Assoolin said, “if you take an anonymous sample, the algorithm will determine which model is a better fit.”
Newsight and ARC@Sheba plan to establish a joint incubator company and then pursue approval by the US Food and Drug Association.
“We will get FDA approval and commercialize as fast as possible,” Assoolin told the Post. But, he added, he imagines many on the market will be willing to test the solution even before that happens. The company has already sold a license to develop virus- and bacteria-detection devices based on its technology to an artificial-intelligence company in Hong Kong.
“We are really excited that