אשפוז קורונה. אילוסטרציה
אשפוז קורונה. אילוסטרציהצילום: ISTOCK

For months now, the public has been inundated with statistics on the coronavirus and its spread.

If one were to judge by the supply provided by the media and the Health Ministry, it would seem that there is an unquenchable thirst for numbers.

It is worthwhile taking a moment to understand what these different statistics mean, and which are important – and which are not.
On a daily basis these numbers – the numbers of new infections, new fatalities, total infections, the infection rate, etc. – make the headlines and feature prominently in the speeches of our political leaders.

With the looming threat of a return to lockdown, coronavirus statistics seem to hover over the country, like a menacing Sword of Damocles, threatening at any moment to crush us either with plague or economic ruin.

Given the central role these numbers which we are constantly fed play in the government’s decisions to open up or shut down the country, it is worthwhile taking a moment to understand what these different statistics mean, and which are important – and which are not.

The biggest headlines since the ‘Second Wave’ was first declared in late May have been the rising number of infections.

Measured by the number of new infections each day, this metric actually only measures the number of new confirmed infections.

The rise in the daily infection rate sounds impressive, soaring from about 100 per day to around 1,000 – until you realize that correlates heavily with the surge in the number of tests conducted.

More tests, more confirmed infections. Last week marked a peak in the number of tests administered each day, rising from a few thousand to 25,001 on Thursday.

A somewhat better indicator of the resurgence of the pandemic is the infection rate of those tested. This has also increased, rising from a little over 1% of those tested in late May to about 3.6% early last week to 4.5% on Friday.

This too, has only limited utility in actually measuring the real rate of the pandemic’s spread, since testing is not done randomly, but follows people who may have come into contact with those suspected of having the virus and, increasingly targets areas with outbreaks of the pandemic.

So what metrics are actually indicative of the pandemic’s strength?

The easiest way to measure the actual decline or resurgence of the pandemic is by counting the number of people whose condition cannot escape measurement, and are therefore most likely to be counted at a fairly consistent rate throughout the pandemic.

That would include, first and most obviously, the fatality rate, since deaths – unlike asymptomatic people infected with the virus – are difficult to miss at any stage of a pandemic.

Also the number of patients on ventilators or in serious condition provides useful clues in trying to measure the pandemic’s strength. The number of hospitalizations, too, is a useful metric.

And what do the numbers tell us?

Regarding the number of fatalities, the number has remained remarkably stable.

During the “First Wave” of the pandemic, from the first coronavirus-related fatality on March 20th through to the beginning of the reopening of the economy and education system in early May, the daily fatality rate – that is, the average number of people who died from coronavirus-related complications each day – was 5.23.

During the roughly three-week reopening period in May, that number fell to 2.24.

Since the ‘Second Wave’ of the coronavirus was first assessed in the last week of May, the daily fatality rate has actually fallen further – down to 1.15.

Even in the last few weeks, the fatality rate has remained fairly stable.

From last Sunday till this Sunday, there were 12 deaths, or daily average fatality rate of 1.71.

The week before that, there were also 12 deaths, giving a rate of 1.71.

It is important to note that this does not mean there has not been a rise, however. Even though the rate is currently stable and well below the rate during both the first wave and the reopening period, it is double what it was several weeks ago, when six people died during the seven-day period ending June 21st, and it is six times what it was the week before that, when two people died in one week. One week before that, deaths were even higher, though, with 13 deaths from May 31st to June 7th for a daily fatality rate of 1.86.

To put this into proportion, each year in Israel, about 1,200 people die of the flu and flu-related complications during the 14-week flu season. That amounts to an average daily fatality rate of about 12.5, or well over twice the peak daily fatality rate during the first wave of the coronavirus.

Some health experts, including, most vocally, former Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Yoram Lass, have emphasized the relatively low death rate of the virus in Israel.

But other experts have pushed back against the use of this metric, including Sheba Tel-Hashomer Hospital Infectious Diseases Unit head Professor Galia Rahav, who recently debated Prof. Lass.

Prof. Rahav, echoing the Health Ministry, said the number seriously ill patients is far more important than the fatality rate, noting that some patients suffered from long-term health problems even after they recovered from the virus itself.

For most of the second wave, the number of coronavirus patients in serious condition has actually remained fairly stable, at around 30 to 45.

At the end of June and beginning of July, however, there has been a notable increase in the number of patients in serious condition, which rose from 45 last Monday to 86 on Sunday. That’s still far below the nearly 200 serious cases during the peak of the first wave in April, but nevertheless marks a troubling rise.

While the number of patients on ventilators has remained very stable, staying within the 20s for the past month, the number of hospitalizations has increased by nearly 50%, rising from the low-to-mid 200s to 335.

So what can we make of these conflicting statistics?

Is the pandemic getting worse, or is the whole thing overblown?

The answer, to some extent, is both are true.

The coronavirus pandemic in Israel is a health challenge and a serious concern, but it is not a plague that threatens to overwhelm the country.

Over a longer period than the annual flu season, it has managed to kill about a quarter as many people.

Even the hospitalization rates, while difficult to digest, are not “catastrophic”, despite the kind of rhetoric used by government and senior health officials during the first wave of the pandemic, and again during the second wave.

In that sense, the dangers of the pandemic have been exaggerated.

At the same time, it is also clear that the pandemic has worsened since the reopening. It’s happened slowly, taking over a month to really show up in the numbers, but it’s real. To what extent this is due to the public ignoring social distancing regulations and mask requirements is unclear.

The death rate has inched upwards from what it was a few weeks ago, and the number of hospitalizations and patients in serious condition have both gone up significantly.

It is very possible that Israel’s total lockdown, which was by some metrics among the most stringent nationwide lockdowns imposed in the industrialized world, curbed the pandemic’s spread more effectively than in much of Europe.

But it may be that this only delayed the inevitable, pushing off the pandemic’s spread through the country, which will only end when Israel achieves herd immunity – or a vaccine is developed, though the latter option is likely not realistic in the immediate future.

If that is the case, that doesn’t mean we’re forced into a false dichotomy of either strangling the economy – which has undergone its most acute crisis in Israeli history – or writing off the lives of those hundreds of people who could die of coronavirus if we simply ignore the virus and return to business as usual.

As former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has proposed, Israel should embark an aggressive program of testing to locate and isolate people who are currently infected, while allowing those who are not currently infected (and not in the endangered groups) to return to work or school, allowing the maximum number of people to return to life as normal.

The Health Ministry has increased the number of tests it carries out, but they it still remains woefully short of what it needs to accomplish, with just 20,000 to 25,000 tests carried out a day last week.

Without such a program in place, no amount of precautions – from masks to social distancing – will save us from either suffering through hundreds of fatalities this winter, or leaving Israel’s economy completely in ruins.

David Rosenberg is Deputy News Editor at Arutz Sheva