Data on omicron morbidity in Israel skyrocketed over the past week, and more is on the way.
But while the number of those verified with us already reaches about 70,000 a day, the situation with our neighbors is completely different.
In Syria, the number of patients, which stood at 37 verified per day at the beginning of the week, dropped to 36 at the end.
No, this is not a typo.
In Syria, a country with 17 million inhabitants - those who survived the war and the waves of deportation and refugees - an average of 30 to 40 new patients were enrolled every week this week.
By the way, the number of corona patients there, since the epidemic broke out two years ago, stands at about 51,000 - and this is what the believer is blessed to say.
Syria may be an exception, but the situation in other countries in the region is not fundamentally different.
Thus, in Iraq, which has more than 40 million inhabitants, there was a decrease from about 6,000 new patients at the beginning of the week to about 4,000 at the end.
In Egypt, which has about 100 million inhabitants, "stability" was recorded - between 1,200 and 1,300 new patients every day.
In Jordan, which has about 11 million inhabitants, including about 4 million refugees from Iraq and Syria, the number of patients averaged about 5,000 every day, and even in Saudi Arabia - where about 35 million people live - about 6,000 new patients were registered every day.
Precisely in Lebanon, a failing country that is on the verge of collapse, but where one of the most advanced health systems in the region - for those who can afford to pay for medical services - seemingly more reliable numbers have been recorded: 8,000-7,000 new verified every day.
It turns out that the Omicron missed the Middle East, or that it found an answer and a cure.
And so, while the whole world groaned under the waves of disease, the area around us became the healthiest and most immune area in the world.
There are several explanations for this, apart of course from the graces of God which he gives to his believers.
First, these are third world countries, some of which are failing countries, and so are the health systems in them - which do not allow to get a reliable picture of the disease situation, what is more that most of the population has no awareness, and access to health services, and the government does not always care.
Second, the population in the area around us is young, and more than two-thirds of them are under the age of 20. Life expectancy is also low, and the result is that the population is less affected by the disease - it is less harmful to young people, most of whom do not experience disease symptoms. , Which are almost non-existent in the countries around us.
It could seemingly be argued that what is happening in the Middle East demonstrates how humanity has dealt with diseases and epidemics in the past.
The young and powerful survived, at least some of them, and so humanity continued its journey from epidemic to disease and back for goodness sake.
But the corona is only part of a more comprehensive story, concerned with the backwardness of the Middle East.
After all, the impact of the omicron on young people may be slight, but not so diseases and epidemics from the past - polio, typhus, etc. - that were present in the area, not to mention scarcity and even hunger and ignorance, are all part of the younger generation in the space around us.
It is not a rosy picture that emerges from the data on the disease of the omicron, but a dark, depressing and disturbing picture.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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