More young Israelis are being hospitalized for COVID-19 than the older ones, according to new data that suggests that Israel’s vaccination campaign may be having an effect.
On Wednesday, the number of Israelis under the age of 60 who were hospitalized by COVID-19 exceeded the number of new hospitalizations among those aged 60 and over.
There were 708 new hospitalizations among the younger group and 575 for the older group. The change first occurred on February 4 and the gap seems to be widening since then.
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The figure represents the total number of new admissions in the previous week. There are 1,598 Israelis in hospitals – more than the sum of new hospitalizations, because many patients remain in the hospital for more than a week.
The figures collected by Our World in Data, from Oxford, show hospitalization rates in Israel. (Courtesy)
Israel mainly uses the Pfizer-BioNTech injection, which requires two doses several weeks apart for its full effect, but seems to start providing a few days of protection after receiving the first dose.
On February 6, the most recent day on which data were available by age group, 90% of Israelis over 60 had received the first dose of the vaccine and 80% had received the second dose.
For people aged 16 to 59, 37% received the first dose and 20% the second. The vaccine is available to all Israelis aged 16 and over.
Forty-two percent of the general population received one dose of the vaccine and 27% both doses. Israel vaccinated a total of 3.7 million people with the first injection and 2.3 million with the two vaccines.
Our World in Data, a science website based at the University of Oxford, gathered data from Israel with the help of Israeli researchers. He focused on Israel to assess the impact of his world-leading vaccination campaign.
He noted that recent changes in rates of infection, hospitalizations and deaths cannot be attributed solely to the impact of vaccination. For example, new virus variants and the national blockade came into play at the same time as the vaccination campaign and also influence the data.
Eran Segal, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Israel, said Thursday that for those aged 60 and over, since the peak of the pandemic in mid-January, there were 58% fewer cases, 44% fewer new hospitalizations and 40% fewer deaths.
New confirmed cases for all Israelis have been declining since mid-January, but for those under the age of 60, the weekly average is still above 37,000 per week. The pandemic peaked in Israel on January 17, with an average of more than 8,000 new cases per day.
An Israeli receives a COVID-19 vaccine in Jerusalem, February 10, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)
Alarmingly, the number of hospitalizations for young Israelis appears to have been increasing since mid-December, despite the vaccination campaign, which started on December 19, and the national blockade, which started on January 8.
In addition, the proportion of new cases among children and adolescents has been increasing since the end of January, despite the closure of schools.
Officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed the most contagious variants for the apparent impermeability of the third wave outbreak to the blockade and vaccination campaign.
The total number of hospitalizations for people aged 60 and over, and for the population as a whole, has declined since the peak in mid-January, with almost 2,000 hospitalizations.
The number of new deaths has also been decreasing since the end of January, when it reached its highest rate since the beginning of the pandemic, with 65 deaths per week.
The news site Ynet said on Thursday that no hospital employee has achieved an inoculation rate of more than 90%, including those who have recovered from the virus, according to data from the Ministry of Health. In some hospitals, less than 60% of the employees received the first dose of the vaccine.
Across the country, there were 712,078 infections in total and there are 67,796 active cases. The death toll is 5,266.
The vaccination rate has stabilized in recent days, prompting authorities to push for more young Israelis to get vaccines and to crack down on anti-vaccine comments on social media.