Although until Rosh Hashanah there was a feeling that Israel was succeeding in overcoming the fourth wave of the corona, the coefficient of infection and the daily amount of infections did not indicate an exit from it.
About three months after Israel was ranked as one of the countries with the lowest morbidity level in the world, last week we slipped to first place in the high morbidity level.
How did this happen?
We checked with the experts.
Prior to the start of the fourth wave, on 13 June, Israel was one of the countries with the lowest morbidity rates in the world and among OECD countries, along with Australia and New Zealand.
Three months later, on September 14, Israel was ranked in the first and dubious place as the country with the highest morbidity among OECD countries.
It is not just about patients: on June 13, the State of Israel had one of the lowest mortality rates in OECD countries, along with Denmark, Norway, Finland and other countries.
Here, too, unfortunately the picture has changed and in September Israel took fifth place in the highest mortality rate among OECD policies.
Vaccines in the third dose in Tel Aviv // Photo: Paz Bar
In the gap between the two dates, 1,008 deaths were added to Israel's terrible death balance, with 964 of them dying in the month and a half since the beginning of August.
And in absolute numbers: in June, the death toll in Israel was 6,474, while in mid-September the number rose to 7,438.
Also in terms of the number of carriers detected each day - in June we stood at four carriers detected per day and towards mid-September we stood at 9,539 new verified per day.
This was also reflected in the percentage of positive tests before the fourth wave of 0.01%, reaching 5.95% in mid-September.
Also in terms of serious patients the wave started with 30 serious patients from the previous waves and now stands at 676 serious patients, not to mention the average death rate which has risen from a rate of deceased per day and an average rate of 24 people dying in the last month.
To understand what has happened in the last three months and what to do in dealing with the corona, we turned to two experts who deal with the virus on a daily basis.
Both admit that a significant proportion of mortality is related to people who were not vaccinated, but they note that it was possible to better prepare for the fourth wave and that the optimism with which decision-makers conducted themselves before the outbreak of the wave was out of place.
A young man receives the third vaccine against Corona in Tel Aviv // Photo: Gideon Markovich,
"The captains learned nothing"
Professor Nadav Davidovich, director of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, believes that the reason for the widespread outbreak of the fourth wave stems from a number of critical mistakes that allowed the Delta strain to spread rapidly.
"If you want to understand what happened in the fourth wave, it is not right to examine it according to the decisions made in the last month but to return to the atmosphere of the end of the corona that was here between April and June, when they dismantled and were less careful.
At that time the Corona cabinet did not listen to the experts and then in early July came the Delta strain, which is more significantly contagious.
We also did not understand in Israel the effectiveness of the vaccine and the fact that immunity decreases after five or six months, so even though there were many vaccinated people in Israel, there was infection again. "
In the lions' den.
The queue for a corona examination in Tel Aviv // Photo: Gideon Markowitz,
On the decision to give the booster vaccine in Israel, Prof. Davidovich said: "Fortunately, a very brave decision was made in Israel and that is to give people the booster shot that also protects the delta strain. So far we have vaccinated three million people in booster and we need to strengthen this immunity. "Low economies do not vaccinate in the booster and need to be reached. However, one should know that when examining mortality among vaccinators one sees how much the third vaccine protected people over 50 and how much mortality in this wave compared to previous waves is significantly lower."
As for returning to school, Prof. Davidovich supports the decision to open up the education system.
"It allows the education system to start understanding what needs to be fixed and what to upgrade. Antigen testing needs to be done before school, running the green classroom outline and taking care to isolate patients. That would be good and I think a regular return to school is the right solution. "Strengthen the health system in Israel, the hospitals and the health funds and all the health systems in the community. The system is desperate for help and this is a critical point in order to succeed in dealing with the virus further."
Teacher receives corona certificates from students, archive // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon,
The solution: get vaccinated
Professor Dror Mevorach, director of the corona department at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, said that the decrease seen in the coefficient of infection was due to reasons related to the number of tests during the holidays and that in his opinion we should continue to be careful and encourage those who have not yet been vaccinated.
"The decline is not real and is due to a minority and difficulty in holiday testing. In the case of 10,000 verified, there are of course serious patients who form and therefore there is significant mortality. We are one of the world leaders in the number verified per million inhabitants - more than a thousand. "And secondly, to decide on additional restrictions within the green label and to prevent gatherings."