On April 13, Israeli Space Agency chairman Isaac Ben-Israel told Israeli media outlet Arutz Sheva that he thinks Israel is close to getting through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ben-Israel, who also heads the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Council for Research and Development and the Security Studies program at Tel Aviv University, argued that global data shows the coronavirus has a six- to eight-week life cycle and this appears to be the case in Israel, too.
“As of the sixth week, the increase in the number of patients has been moderate, peaking in the sixth week at 700 patients per day,” he said. “Since then, it has been declining, and today, there are only 300 new patients.”
Ben-Israel added, “This is how it is all over the world. Both in countries where they have taken closure steps, like Italy, and in countries that have not had closures, like Taiwan or Singapore. In such and such countries, there is an increase until the fourth to sixth week, and immediately thereafter, moderation until during the eighth week, it disappears.”
He called for the Israeli government’s restrictions to be lifted at the end of the week, although he suggested individuals still take precautionary measures “like wearing masks and keeping our distance from person to person and banning crowds.”
Ben-Israel also expressed concern about the economic damage from the pandemic, arguing it “has implications for health. We will pay with more human lives with our health system in the current state.”
On April 12, Ben-Israel wrote in an article cited by The New York Times that Israel’s “peak expansion rate has been behind us for about two weeks now, and will probably wane almost completely within two weeks.”
Ran Namerode, who heads the Redworth Capital Group investment firm and the Israel-based Mennen Medical Group, had a similar observation in a March 23 Jerusalem Post op-ed examining global data. He cited South Korea as an example.
“Dozens of daily new cases started to appear around February 20. By March 3, the daily rate had reached a peak of approximately 850 new cases,” Namerode wrote. “Since then, it has been declining, and on March 15, it stabilized back at less than 100 new cases per day (with only two exceptions). Essentially, within five weeks, the significant level of the epidemic in Korea was suppressed and reached a daily rate that no longer presents a major challenge to the health system.”
He wrote that the pattern was similar in Italy, France, China, Iran and Israel based on data at the time, although he acknowledged there were limitations in such data, especially in Iran and China. Regardless, Namerode concluded the virus will only last several weeks and that at the end of the month, Israel will only have “a few new cases per day.”
“We might be seeing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he wrote.
However, Health Ministry Director Professor Gabi Barbash disputed Ben-Israel’s argument, telling Israel’s Channel 12 that Israel needed to take strict lockdown measures to avoid having its healthcare system overwhelmed. He also argued that it will take another year before coronavirus dissipates.
“I strongly urge that we not let mathematicians, who know nothing about biology, determine when we lift the lockdown,” Barbash said.
As of this writing, Israel has 11,586 confirmed cases and 116 deaths from the virus. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on April 13 that the cabinet will have a plan ready to start re-opening the economy at the end of the week.
Israel currently has a 25.8% unemployment rate.
