The pessimistic scenarios come true • In August alone 383 people lost their lives • If the current mortality rate continues - thousands of Israelis will die in the plague • Doctors warn: "There is a public perception that it is a disease of the elderly with background diseases, but also a stomach at 50 is a background" • About 40 % Of the deceased - under the age of 80
Corona epidemic in Israel // Photo: Yossi Zeliger, Oren Ben Hakon
"There is a complete gap between what my friends and I in the health care system see and public insight. We, the teams, are in a sense of a war of attrition, struggling daily for patients' lives, but when I try to explain the danger of the disease, I sometimes have zero understanding." .
So says in frustration Dr. Uri Galanta, an intensive care and inpatient specialist and a senior physician in the Corona Intensive Care Unit at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.
Galanta says that the public has established a perception that it is a disease of the elderly with severe background diseases such as cancer.
But being overweight is also considered a background disease.
"For example, a bit of a tummy tuck at age 50, which quite a few people have, also poses a high risk," says Galante.
Photo: Newsenders
The data speaks for itself.
The death toll from corona in Israel stands at 976 (as of this writing), and in August alone, 383 people lost their lives.
September has also already claimed dozens of victims (see table).
According to the data, the disease is not reserved for people aged 70 and over.
The youngest patients were two 19-year-old girls, from East Jerusalem and Holon.
The deadliest decade of age in absolute numbers is the 1980s.
Six of the corona victims were aged 100 and over (see table).
The data also show that 92 died in a geriatric hospital, 14 died in their homes and the rest in hospitals.
The average age of 976 deaths is 79.8, with a difference between women and men - 82 for women and 78 for men.
About 40 percent of the deceased were under 80 years old.
Where do the deceased come from?
148 from Jerusalem, 71 from Bnei Brak, 63 from Tel Aviv.
Other localities: 34 died from Rishon Lezion, 22 died from Ashdod, 18 from Haifa, 10 from Baqa al-Gharbiya and five from Umm al-Fahm.
"The course of the disease in the most severe corona patients, who come to the intensive care unit, is different from what we see in other serious diseases," says Dr. Galante. Or other respiratory patients.
Half of respiratory corona patients do not survive - compared with 15 percent among other intensive care ventilators.
These are numbers we are not used to seeing.
"The staff of the intensive care unit must feel that he is successful, and here in Corona, our victories are unfortunately few and that causes professional frustration."
"Dr. Aharon Bolshinsky, director of the Corona Intensive Care Unit at Wolfson and a specialist at the boarding school, says that a common and special difficulty for Corona is maintaining contact with the patients' families by telephone." We are not used to dealing with a patient's family over the phone, "says Dr. Bolshinsky. "Unfortunately, there are also difficult cases where the patient's condition needs to be reported on the phone or even worse, and it's not easy. We as doctors are used to seeing the family, looking into the eyes, talking, not the phone. - And for me as a doctor it is difficult, but that is the reality. "
