As Israel slowly exits its second lockdown, there hasn’t really been time to take stock of how bad things got. One of the common claims of the conspiracy theorists and deniers is that the coronavirus isn’t really killing anyone, or at least not nearly as many people as the official figures claim. These people say […]
Israel’s Second Lockdown Worked
Six weeks after Israel went into a second lockdown, and 10 days after the most significant restrictions were lifted, it really looks like a success. Cases Daily coronavirus cases peaked about 12 days after the lockdown, and then fell rapidly. As the number of daily cases fell, so did testing. This is actually expected, because […]
Schools, Lockdowns and Limbo
Israel’s government appeared to have learnt the key lesson of the country’s second coronavirus wave: open things slowly. Slowly enough to see the impact of each decision in the hope that infection rates keep dropping, and slowly enough to stop or reverse any relaxation of the rules before things spiral out of control again and […]
Lowest Positivity since July? Yes, but…
Headlines this morning proclaimed that Israel recorded the lowest coronavirus test positivity since July. Yesterday, just 5.4% of PCR tests for RNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus found what they were looking for, the lowest percentage since early July. Let’s look at that number a bit deeper. Israel’s testing regimen Israel has fairly high per-capita testing […]
Israel’s second lockdown is working, but there’s trouble ahead
Some data and thoughts on the lockdown and what happens next. 1. The lockdown is working All indicators now show that infections are dropping, test positivity is falling, and hospitalisations appear to have peaked, too. The percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive has fallen from a peak of over 15% down to just 8% […]