For the first time since the pandemic began, Israel says more than a quarter of its most serious cases of Covid-19, where hospitalization is required, are found in patients under 60 years of age.
The Israeli Ministry of Health blames a new strain first discovered in the UK last month.
Dr Itamar Grotto, associate director general of the Israeli Ministry of Health, explained: “This is due to the fact that the new variant of the UK is more infectious, mainly among young people and children.”
The news that Israeli hospitals now have a record number of serious Covid cases came 24 hours after Israel started a “second dose.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday became the first to get his second shot.
Israel has been praised by the global health community for advancing so quickly on vaccination. So far, nearly two million Israelis have received the first shot, about 9 million people. Israel has a highly centralized health system, where everyone has to register in a digital system, which makes it easier for the Ministry of Health to organize vaccine collection across the country.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine (COVID-19) at Ramat Gan’s Sheba Medical Center near the coastal city of Tel Aviv on January 9, 2021.
MIRIAM ALSTER | AFP | Getty Images
Despite success on the vaccine front, Israel is currently in its third nationwide closure due to the spreading virus. Without downplaying concern about the rising percentage of young people hospitalized with serious infections, Grotto, an epidemiologist, notes that nearly 70% of Israelis over the age of 60 have received their first shot by providing them with some immunity.
CNBC collaborator and former FDA leader Dr. Scott Gottlieb, has been observing trends in Israel and Europe since the pandemic began a year ago, and uses them as a possible model of what could happen in the United States, including the relatively recently discovered variant of the United Kingdom.
“If we manage to deploy the vaccine, we will probably be able to eliminate it,” Gottlieb said, referring to the most dangerous and rapid spread of the strain.
He thinks the recent and alarming rise in cases in the U.S. is more related to travel and vacation meetings, “but the bottom line is that we don’t have a surveillance system good enough to know for sure,” Gottlieb said.
The UK variant, he said, only officially accounts for 0.2% of cases in the United States. Gottlieb also warned that U.S. health officials are still not looking as closely as they should at causing the increasingly dangerous tension that is wreaking havoc on an overflowing South African health system.