How well is the Jewish state battling the novel coronavirus?
“So far, we’re doing well, but the jury is really still out,” said Eyal Leshem, director of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. “We really need to see in the next several weeks how well we are coping with corona.”
But there are a few things we do know.
On the one hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that “the State of Israel is ahead of the vast majority of countries” in combating SARS-CoV-2. Earlier this week, Israel was ranked the No. 1 safest country to stay free of coronavirus by the Deep Knowledge Group.
On the other hand, a report by Worldometer – one of the leading websites for coronavirus statistics, which takes data from the World Health Organization – shows how the coronavirus is affecting 203 countries and territories around the world. It demonstrates that Israel is not better off than all or even most other countries where people are infected.
If one looks at the total number of cases per one million people, Israel is actually one of the worst. There are only 22 countries that have more cases per million than Israel, which means there are 180 countries that are doing better.
But Leshem said the ranking really depends on the number of people who have been tested. In Israel, we test about 7,000 people per day and are working toward testing as many as 30,000.
“In Israel, we have tested very mild cases that in other countries would not have been tested,” he said.
In the United Kingdom, for example, people who have a fever or cough are asked to enter home isolation for a week, but they are not tested. Therefore, the country does not know if those people had the virus, and they are not counted in its total cases.
The more important measurement, Leshem said, is mortality rate, and Israel has a low rate compared to other countries. This is likely because many of the patients in Israel are younger people who contracted the disease while traveling or coming in contact with their traveling peers, he said.
According to the Health Ministry, 37% of infected Israelis are under the age of 30, 15% are 30-39 and 13% are 40-49. Only 38% of patients were over 60. So far, only two of the patients who died were under 60.
“Considering we have a chronically starved health system,” Israel has done well at increasing the number of intensive-care beds in the country, purchasing ventilators and preparing more doctors and nurses to be able to respond if there would be a spike in cases, Leshem said.
Regarding certain haredi (ultra-Orthodox) population centers, such as Bnei Brak, he said: “When you introduce a highly infectious virus like coronavirus into a place that is highly populated, you expect to see a rapid rise in the number of cases.” But Israel has not done enough testing in the city, and “we don’t really know what the situation is,” he said
Leshem recommends that the government immediately enforce social distancing in the haredi community in collaboration with rabbinical leadership.
When will we know if we have “flattened the curve” and are keeping the number of daily cases at a manageable level for medical providers?
Within the next two or three weeks we will know if we have made the right policy choices, as the number of patients per day will either multiply or begin to flatten out, Leshem said.
“We still don’t have a very accurate measure of the infection in the community,” he said, adding that as we increase testing, Israel will be able to create a “heat map” that shows how many people are infected in which cities or towns.
“As we collect data from individual cities, we can figure out if the disease flares up in a certain region and can focus the intervention regionally and not have to close the whole country,” Leshem said.
He predicted that people will be able to start going back to school and work in stages after Passover, while wearing protective masks and adhering to certain social-distancing protocols. Then the country will have to continue to screen people to ensure that returning to school and work does not increase the number of cases, especially for high-risk patients.
“One thing is certain: The minute we closed schools and reduced people-to-people contact by closing malls, restaurants and workplaces, the outbreak is slowing down,” Leshem said. “What we are seeing now are the results of the steps taken three weeks ago.”
He advised that the best estimates for an available vaccine are one to three years from now, and it is very difficult to say what is going to happen with the virus in the summer or next winter.
“Some say it will become better in the summer, but we really don’t know,” Leshem said.
As such, he said it is best to exercise caution.
“You have to think, how willing are you to take a risk? If you are wrong, you are risking thousands of deaths,” Leshem said. “We are in the mid-term. We can only get our report card at the end of the school year,” which will be in hindsight when the virus has run its course.