With hospitals calm and deaths low, expert says Israel’s COVID wave about to recede
Israel’s COVID wave about to recede
Prof. Nadav Katz says the sixth wave is almost at peak and will soon be in retreat, without anything close to damage inflicted by winter wave
Israel’s current coronavirus wave is almost at its peak and the number of new daily infections will soon start to fall, according to one of the country’s top virus statisticians.
The transmission rate has dropped, with each confirmed patient infecting an average 1.06 others. A month ago, this figure known as the R0, was 1.46.
This number is calculated based on data from several days ago, so experts believe it’s possible that current data may even render the R0 under 1, meaning that the overall infection rate is shrinking, not growing.
A health care worker processes swab samples from Israelis at a testing center, on June 28, 2022. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
Israel’s current coronavirus wave is almost at its peak and the number of new daily infections will soon start to fall, according to one of the country’s top virus statisticians.
The transmission rate has dropped, with each confirmed patient infecting an average 1.06 others. A month ago, this figure known as the R0, was 1.46.
This number is calculated based on data from several days ago, so experts believe it’s possible that current data may even render the R0 under 1, meaning that the overall infection rate is shrinking, not growing.
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“We are approaching the peak, and quite possibly are even a little bit after the peak,” Prof. Nadav Katz, part of an interdisciplinary COVID-monitoring group at Hebrew University, told The Times of Israel.
He said that pressure will continue to increase in hospitals for another one to two weeks, as patients tend to become hospitalized some time after infection. There are 1,165 Israelis in hospital with the coronavirus, and 350 serious cases — far lower than during the winter wave and well below capacity.
“The number of serous patients will go up, and in this respect we haven’t yet peaked,” Katz said. “However the hospitals don’t look like they will be overwhelmed — and while this is serious, we are not at all at the level of event we had in January.”