Officials at Jerusalem’s Herzog Medical Center on Sunday closed the hospital’s coronavirus ward, the last one operating in the country.
The ward’s closure means that future COVID-19 patients will be treated in regular hospital wards.
Herzog’s coronavirus ward opened in August 2020, and treated 2,000 patients.
“We are closing the department with a sense of joy and pride. There is a feeling of real joy that the corona event, with its severe consequences, is behind us,” said Herzog director Dr. Kobi Haviv.
“We are the only hospital in Israel that worked and treated the corona patients continuously. The hospital staff was stretched to the limit during the waves of infection. For close to three years, we conducted ourselves according to the accordion method, with the transfer of medical and paramedical personnel between the departments, as needed,” he added.
There are currently some 10,750 active COVID-19 cases in Israel, of which 21 are considered serious or critical, according to Health Ministry figures.
The Health Ministry recorded 12,487 Israeli deaths from the coronavirus since an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor became the country’s first fatality on March 20, 2020.