Israel reported 423 new cases of Covid-19 yesterday. They are up to 4,097 total cases considered active. They're up to 81 people in the hospitalized with 47 of those cases considered seriously ill. 13 people are on ventilators. Israel has now had 7 people die this week after going nearly 3 weeks without a death prior to the Delta wave hitting.
@Infoseepage What I'm curious about is, are those people on ventilators and those deaths all unvaccinated people?
@trinsec I do know that one of the people who died recent, a man in his 40's was unvaccinated.
Of the people in the last month to end up on ventilators, 12 of them we under the age of 60 and one was in the 20-29 age bracket.
@Infoseepage The reason I was wondering is, if everybody there who is in trouble are unvaccinated, then herd immunity doesn't seem to be working. The only solution would be for everybody to be vaccinated. But so far that's not certain I understand.
@trinsec Vaccinated people can certainly get in trouble with Delta, but they are far less likely to do so than had they been unvaccinated. They're both less likely to get infected in the first place and less likely for the disease to progress to a point needing hospitalization. Still, there are a LOT of vaccinated old people, so MOST of the people you are going to see in ICUs and dying in a highly vaccinated society like Israel's are going to be old people with other health problems.
@Infoseepage Makes sense, and totally what I expect. I'm just wondering about people who refuse to be vaccinated, and who secretly hope to enjoy the benefits of herd immunity...
@trinsec There is already good evidence that Delta has significantly worse chances for hospitalization and severe outcomes than prior strains among the unvaccinated. To me, it is absolutely idiotic that people are choosing to face this without vaccination.
@Infoseepage Here in the media they claim that Delta is way more infectious, but that the end result is about the same as the other strains. So I don't think people feel as alarmed as they ought to be.
@trinsec I certainly think it is more infectious rather than simply having a longer infectious period or some other potential advantages. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot more super spreading events than before and a lot of the contact tracing results out of Australia are showing it spread through extremely casual contact that wouldn't have been considered significant with prior strains.
@Infoseepage So, basically our 'anderhalvemetermaatregel' (I love that word :P) which basically means 'keep 1.5 meter distance from each other' would not be sufficient anymore? Not even outdoors? Wow, boy, are we in for some interesting times...
@trinsec I don't leave my residence without a N100 (you didn't read that wrong) on my face and I broadly avoid going anywhere outdoors where I might closely encounter another unmasked individual. The 2 meter rule has never been sound advice, imo. The distancing advice should have always been "maintain as much physical and temporal distance between yourself and other individuals and as is practical, regardless of circumstance."
@Infoseepage It helps that I'm usually at home just doing my own thing. But since the masks aren't mandatory anymore, I've stopped wearing them. I accept that I run a higher risk. I'm fully vaccinated, and I know it doesn't make me immune but I accept the risks at this point. We (my family) also try to avoid busy areas and such, so we're not totally braindead I hope! :D Public transport still requires masks, which makes sense as you can't maintain any distance whatsoever at all there.
It probably helps that I don't live in the hotspot areas like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. I'd feel unsafe enough there to go wear a mask I'm sure.
@trinsec I'd personally avoid mass transit, period. Way too many cases linked to use and the evidence is that most forms of MT are really poorly ventilated.
Some of the first strong evidence that Covid was airborne came from early contact tracing reports from China where people 4-5 meters away from the infected individual and facing the opposite direction were getting infected. They also found cases where people who entered buses 30+m after the infected person left got infected.
@Infoseepage Mass transit here is relatively safe I've understood. Well, in my area anyway. Masks are mandatory. I don't use mass transit though, I bike around. Even healthier that way! Here, the main cause of spread are the pubs and clubs and big (dance) events. That's why now, with the rise of the 3rd wave, clubs and pubs and festivals have been limited again.
The club owners are all 'whine whine' and they claimed during the last lockdown that they weren't the cause. But since we opened them up and our rates increased unbelievably fast... they're still like 'whine whine' but I have zero empathy for them because it's now so friggin' obvious that their venues are superspreading areas. It's pretty frustrating to see people not getting it that they're part of the problem.
