The number of active coronavirus cases in Israel has surged by 500% in one month, from 2,055 cases on June 7 to 12,306 on July 7, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
Israel’s increase of weekly infections is one of the highest in the world and is lower only than Switzerland, Serbia, Australia and the Czech Republic.
Coronavirus cases have been confirmed throughout Israel in 262 cities, towns and communities. According to the report the second wave has hit the Arab sector much harder than the first wave, with the worst outbreak in Kfar Qasim, a city about 12 miles east of Tel Aviv.
While the infection rate in Chareidi areas is high as well, the report says that the second wave has halved the percentage of Chareidi patients, from 55% in the first wave to 27% in the second wave.
That said, there has been a significant increase in active cases over the past month in the cities of Bnei Brak, Beitar Illit, Elad and the Chareidi neighborhoods of Ashdod and Tiveria.
The report found that Israelis abandoned health ministry regulations en masse when restaurants opened on May 20.
Compliance increased in June following an address by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and even more so after the fine for not wearing a mask was increased on June 22.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Cases of what? People who are getting tested for antibodies? Israel has 113 serious cases and about the same amount of moderate. Nearly all are old people with other problems. Everyone else shows nothing or next to nothing. They are not sick. This whole thing is a fraud.
Before we look at number of CASES, we should look at hospitalization rates and release rates to get a sense of how serious a problem there is. A large increase in cases among kids is not as worrisome as a lower increase among an elderly population.
Of course, that does not mean that an increase in cases is meaningless, just that there are other important stats that one needs to look at to assess how serious the situation is.
Most people (probably over 90%, especially in young populations), do not become ill when they get Covid19. Covid19 is most likely to spread within a family, and Chareidim have large families. This would suggest that the percentage of Chareidim who already had Covid19, even though very few became ill, in the so-called “first wave” was substantially greater. So one would expect that in a “second wave”, there would be significantly fewer Chareidim still unexposed as opposed to secular Israelis who are older and less likely to live in large families and probably more likely to have been fanatic about trying to avoid exposure.