I was just looking at 91-divoc, and Israeli infection rates are going through the roof. Their death rate is up, too – nearly as high per capita as the US, and well above the UK or Canada.
Yeah, I’ve been looking at ourworldindata. If you look at hospitalizations and deaths relative to cases, Israel looks better than the US. It also looks better when you compare its own previous surges. US surges seem to be much less steep but more long-lived as the virus burns through the whole country. The US has not reached its peak yet. Canada has only just begun.
On the other hand, Israel looks much worse than the UK. Even though the UK had a strong surge (which seems to be back on an upswing), its hospitalizations and deaths are relatively lower than Israel’s and much, much lower than UK’s previous surges. Is it due to UK delaying the second dose or mixing types of vaccines (AstraZeneca+Pfizer)? Maybe a bit of both. They also had restrictions on activities that were there for a month and a half into their surge
Canada is just starting its surge so it’s difficult to compare yet, but will be very interesting. Israel and Canada have similar fully-vaccinated rates at the beginning of their respective surges. Canada has the highest single dose rates right now. I don’t know the age distributions, but that is important.
There are two important differences. First, Canada delayed their second dose and we know immune responses are better (in the lab) if the second dose is delayed. Second, I think many Canadian localities still have mask mandates and restrictions (someone can correct me here). Israel was opening up completely and only resumed a mask mandate after cases started to skyrocket. They are also requiring vaccination for certain activities, but I don’t know of any other restrictions.
So I have some questions about this…
I thought Israel had one of the highest vaccinated population rates. If this is true, is some proportion of the rise in death rates attributed to breakthrough infections, or is the rise in death rates still strictly among the unvaccinated population?
Israel has a large body of elderly citizens that were fully vaccinated by, say, late January 2021. Those early vaccinations are starting to offer waning protection, Israeli researchers have surmised.
Yep. However, their hospitalizations are skewing younger than past surges. So there are some younger people who are still not getting vaccinated.
@Trom and @puzzlegal posted some great articles, with graphs, showing what’s really going on in Israel.
Here’s a link to an article I posted in another thread.
Israel is terrifying news. It means that the US/UK can expect surge of the “waned vaccinated” come the winter (first campaign picked up steam in early spring) while EU and Asia get hit next spring (first campaign mid spring-early summer).
Africa is fucked regardless. 
Nah, that’s not what the Israel data is saying (see literally the two posts above yours).
The problem is not ‘waned’ acquired immunity but relatively low vaccination rates among subsets of the population - primarily younger people in the case of Israel. Yes, protection drops a bit with time but not in a huge way or in a way that should lead to massive waves of infection.
It’s still the unvaccinated that are the main problem in Israel. And we’re seeing the same thing in the US. We see a lot of articles about breakthrough infections and some people are worried about those, but that’s like worrying about a leaky toilet when the house is on fire. And the fire in the case of Israel (and the US) is the unvaccinated.
Those with waning immunity (or possibly, never enough immunity to fight off Delta) are overwhelming the very old people who are at highest risk no matter what. The message i get from Israel is that a booster will be critical for the elderly, and helpful to those younger both to protect against mild covid and to protect their elderly friend and relatives.
Yes! I just read this last night. The largest group is the 12-18 year olds. People are not getting their kids vaccinated. Then come the Israeli Arabs, followed by the Ultra Orthodox Jews. The kids are scattered throughout but the Arabs and Orthodox are clustered in communities that heighten the spread. I think the Arabs and people not vaccinating kids are becoming less hesitant though. The hesitancy in Israel is not political like it is in the US.
Actually, it’s not hesitancy for the Arabs. Haartz reported that they don’t have as many vaccine hubs. Can’t find the article. Duh.
I was going to ask about the Arabs. I thought Israel wasn’t even making much vaccine available to occupied Palestine, which is included in all the national numbers. (And many of the Palestinians work in “Israel proper”. Seems crazy that Israel didn’t work with their leadership to get them vaccine. But perhaps the distrust is so deep it wouldn’t have been possible.)
That makes a lot of sense. Israel vaxxed up to a certain point very quickly but has leveled off. Other nations have surpassed it.
Okay, even considering Palestine in their numbers, Israel is still doing poorly with new cases compared to other highly vaxxed nations or even highly vaxxed states in the US. So what’s up with Israel?
I dunno, that’s why I started this thread.
Hey Israel! What’s going on over there??
There’s this analysis from Your Local Epidemiologist that tries to tease out some clues. No definitive answers but certainly a lot of suggestive stuff, including the timing of their vaccination campaign (waning immunity just as Delta hits) and how relatively young Israel is compared to other highly vaccinated nations.
Great post. Thanks!
WaPo also wrote a “What’s up with Israel?” article specifically mentioning the number of young people (including those eligible for the vaccine) who are not vaccinated.
Israel is now offering booster shots:
IMO it’s a combination of factors:
Complacency. Israel was quick to get vaccines out of the gate, but it seems the vaccines only last a year or so.
Politics. While not nearly as bad as in the US, Israel has populations that don’t want to get vaccinated. In addition, Israel is not making vaccines as available to Palestinians (which is a political issue).
The Delta virus. Rates of disease are increasing in Israel, Canada, and the US. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s increasing in the UK, which has a high vaccination rate (by modern standards, which is low by the standards of a few decades ago).
This is absolutely not true at all.
There is reduced efficacy with time, as with most vaccines but the apparent reduction 6 months out would have been considered more than sufficiently effective had that been the starting point.
And, as mentioned in the article (and above in the thread), vaccine uptake is not uniformly distributed. Kids still haven’t been vaccinated. The youngest age groups are the least vaccinated. And Israel has, relatively speaking, more young people than the US or Europe.
I expect the UK and Canada to do a bit better than Israel and the US due to waiting longer between the first and second doses. But I guess we’ll see.