The numbers being quoted in the media are completely useless for determining the true scope of the pandemic in Israel. And yet the politicians are threatening the citizens with all kinds of punitive measures based on the situation as perceived through these skewed statistics. We’ve already seen people harassed on the streets by the police; whole neighborhoods locked down; people forced to leave home and go to “coronavirus hotels.” Limits on activities have already been renewed with promises of High Holy Days being a repeat of Pesach and threats of synagogue and yeshivah closures once again.The inmates who have taken charge of the asylum tout “record” numbers of infected and “record” numbers of serious cases, but it is impossible to get a true accounting of the real numbers as the reports are contradictory depending on where you look for them. (For example today’s count of new cases was either 1200+ or 1500+ depending on where you were looking.)Recently, I quoted Dr. Yoav Yehezkelli who said: “What matters is not the total number of patients, but the number of severe illnesses and intubated patients. As long as these figures are under control, the situation is good.”
The constantly increasing number of overall cases is clearly the result of increased testing [Health Ministry said set to reduce testing as system overwhelmed by outbreak – Asymptomatic people won’t be checked; Israeli HMOs warn they’ll start ‘throwing away’ virus tests due to overload] but now the reported number of “severe” illnesses has more than doubled since then. And that is explained here:
Israel’s recent rise in serious COVID-19 cases partly due to change in criteria – Doctors at Israel’s largest hospital amended their approach to categorizing virus patients, impacting national stats; goal is to standardize criteria, they say, not inflate figures.
However, that’s exactly what happened. Despite the seeming worsening of the pandemic in Israel in a so-called “second wave,” the mortality rate remains relatively low. But even those numbers can’t be taken at face value as the Israeli media is reporting 375 deaths as a result of COVID-19 as of today’s date, while the WHO makes it 364.
Whom do we believe? There is no way to know how the dead are being counted as many countries have admitted to decisions and practices which skews those numbers as well. Either way, the figure remains relatively low. Even taking the higher figure of 375, that averages out to 2.5 persons per day (since Feb 21 when counts began).
By comparison, in 2016, the most recent date I can find for statistics, there were a total of 35,717 deaths from all causes in the over-65 age group (those determined to be most at risk from COVID-19).That’s an average of 97.8 persons per day.
The reason our perception of this pandemic is so out of touch with reality is because at no other time have the media and the government ever reported on daily deaths from any other cause. I also have to wonder why the number of ventilated patients is still rising when ventilator-assisted breathing has been determined by many credible medical sources to be a cause of higher mortality. (See Are Ventilators Making Some COVID-19 Patients Worse? and Why Ventilators May Not Be Working as Well for COVID-19 Patients as Doctors Hoped.)
This was shared today on Facebook. It is genius.
