The largest percentage of Israelis catching coronavirus are between the ages of 20 and 29.
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANA supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump shoots a video with his mobile phone from the sparsely filled upper decks of the arena as the president addresses his first re-election campaign rally in several months in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the BOK Center in Tulsa,(photo credit: LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS)
The Health Ministry presented information about who has coronavirus and where they caught it at Sunday’s Knesset coronavirus committee meeting, raising questions about the government’s recent restrictions.Because the Health Ministry has not been consistently tracking data, it could not provide information since the start of the pandemic. Rather, it mostly shared statistics from the last week, July 10-16, during which some 7,998 people were infected with the virus.However, the Health Ministry only attempted to carry out epidemiological tracking on 5,120 patients, as 204 people refused to be tracked, and in 1,662 cases (one-third) the cause of infection is still unknown.Where did they catch corona?The majority (1,474, or 67%) of Israelis caught it at home.In second place: schools (210, or 9.5%). Third place: events (123, or 5.6%).Other places in which people became infected included religious establishments, such as synagogues; yeshivot or mikvaot ritual baths (106, or 4.8%); places of entertainment (including restaurants or coffee shops (89, or 4%); work (48, or 2.2%); senior-living facilities (28, or 1.3%); stores or malls (26, or 1.2%); medical establishments (25, or 1.1%); at a sports field (24, or 1.1%). At all other verified locations, fewer than 1% of patients caught the virus, including at swimming pools, where 0.2% of people caught the virus.Restaurants are expected to convert to takeout and delivery only beginning Tuesday morning, although only 4% of known infections in the last week originated in eateries – fewer than the number of people infected at religious establishments.Also, pools are closed despite little data to support this decision.
The Health Ministry did not present new data about infections at gyms. However, the report showed that gyms were closed in many places around the world at times of peak infection, including in the US, South Korea and Japan.Gyms remain closed in Austria and Britain. In Australia, the US and Canada, states and provinces can decide whether to open workout centers based on the percentage of infection in their area.Eight people contracted coronavirus abroad last week; 1,250 people know from whom they caught it, but they do not know from where; 1,507 people caught it from a known sick person in a known location; 721 caught it at a known location, but they do not know from whom; and 1,662 do not know where they were infected.Who is getting sick?Regarding the age of Israelis who get coronavirus, the largest percentage are ages 20-29 (10,755), followed by 10-19 (9,152), 30-39 (7,020) and 40-49 (6,129).The data presented by the ministry is as of July 18, when some 48,000 people had been infected since the start of the pandemic. On Sunday, that number was closer to 50,000.The data showed that the majority of young people have been infected in this recent wave, since the week of June 21.Who is the most sick?Israel has had more patients diagnosed as having serious symptoms in the first part of July than in any other time during the entire crisis – 386. In April, Israel registered 381 serious patients. At the same time, Israel has registered 82 intubated patients so far in July – the same number as in March. However, in April, there were 222 patients on ventilators.What has changed is that the percentage of younger patients who are in serious condition is much higher than before. In March, 21% of serious patients were under the age of 60. That number was 22.4% in April, 8.4% in May, 26.7% in June and 31.7% in July, the Health Ministry reported.As more young people are catching coronavirus now, it is possible that around the same percentage of young people have serious symptoms.Last month, Dr. Rivka Abulafia-Lapid, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem expert in microbiology, immunology and viruses, told The Jerusalem Post that 5%-10% of people below the age of 55 who contract COVID-19 develop a serious case.
