230 Million Cases and Israel Continues to See Infections Increase

The world has now reached 230 million Covid infections. 

And there are 56 countries that are in the C500K grouping:

The US of A broke a new record on September 08 – it registered 675,671 fatalities. 

If the clock was turned back to 20 months ago when the epidemic had just broken out in that country, no one would believe that so many ordinary people would die from the deadly virus. Covid-19 has now killed more Americans than the Spanish flu pandemic – the death toll back then in 1918-19 was 675,000, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

And in Israel, Covid cases are on the rise again. 

The country has been the world’s laboratory during much of the Covid era. It was the first country to achieve mass inoculations, first to add a booster to the two-shot regimen of the Pfizer vaccine, and first to broaden inoculation to children who are 12 and over. By the start of the summer, it appeared to be on the way to becoming the first country to achieve herd immunity. 

And yet Israel now has the world’s highest rolling weekly average of new Covid cases. That’s been something of a shock and raises the question of whether the country’s pandemic plan has worked. 

Three Saturdays ago, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz (right) assured the country that everything was under control. “Stop with the panic!” he enjoined the public. 

The government had explained that Covid case numbers have risen because of the increased testing as the school year begins. And there are those who attribute it to the infectiousness of the Delta variant. Whatever the case may be, the rates of serious illness and mortality remain low. 

While the vaccines have been successful for Israel, it seems that that protection they offer diminishes faster than originally hoped. But the booster is said to be doubling the immunity of those who previously got the two-jab regimen. 

Now the bet is that the booster will keep the number of delta-related deaths and life-threatening illnesses stable, that vaccinating young people will pay off, and that no vaccine-resistant variants will enter the equation. And the “new cases” statistic will no longer be a headline grabber. Or at least, that is their hope.

Point to note: Even model countries like China and New Zealand with their zero Covid tolerance policy are seeing sporadic cases – but the numbers are thankfully low.