The restrictions implemented in the last 10 days to two weeks have already started to reduce coronavirus infection in Israel and may lead the country back to where it needs to be, according to a predictive model created by the Hebrew University.
In a release disseminated to the press on Monday, the university team showed that the doubling rate has dropped to every 24 days; it was around every seven days at the peak of the second wave.
During the first wave, the number of infected patients doubled as fast as every three days.
Moreover, the team showed that the increase in the number of patients with serious or moderate symptoms is slowing down and doubling around every 15 days.
“It seems that the steps taken to stop the pandemic have been very effective,” the team explained, predicting that the country could reach an infection rate of 1:1 within one week.
The data was released on Monday, the same day that the Health Ministry reported that only around 1,000 patients were diagnosed with coronavirus the day before. At the time of this writing, there were 264 coronavirus patients in serious condition.
However, Prof. Nadav Katz, who has worked on HU’s model, clarified that one day of lower numbers is not reflective of a general trend.
“We are in for a few rough days,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “But it appears to be slowing down, and hopefully things are going to turn around and we will start to flatten the curve similar to the first wave.”
Last week, the team released a prediction as well, showing that if infection had continued to spread at the previous rate, the country could reach 1,000 patients in moderate and serious condition – around the capacity of the health system.