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.

@Infoseepage It probably also makes more sense that I don't like masks if you know that I'm deaf and rely on lipreading... :P

@trinsec Have you checked out some of the surgical masks which have a clear window for lip reading at least for use among your own circle of friends/family when out and about publicly? Obviously can't chose what strangers strap to their face, which must be the greater part of the difficulty. Not sure of the filtration efficiency on those. I avoid indoor environments almost entirely, but wouldn't wear anything less than an n95 anywhere indoors these days.

@Infoseepage The clear window mask is mediocre. You miss way too much of the nuances of facial expressions. It's not pure lipreading that deaf people do, it's the whole face. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I know you meant well. ;)

I do shop when I do need to shop, and the supermarket I consider 'fairly safe' due to ventilation (and I tend to go in early morning when it's not busy at all). I also do take walks out, we consider outdoors to be safe as well. Other than that, I'm pretty much staying home. But um... that was already the case before the pandemic, so not too much changed for me. ;)

We'll see if an event in late august will continue and whether we'll go there, depends on the severity of the infection spread. We've entering the 3rd wave now. This time it's the (still largely unvaccinated) youths of 19-29 years who absolutely have to go to dance events or to hotspot countries. Sheesh. We went from 100 infections a day to 10k in... 5 days? Wonderful. :P

@trinsec Really no good solution short of going with a full on PAPR. Those would certainly work for lip reading. Problem is getting the OTHER person to wear it. Hard enough to get the general public to even strap a 30 cent surgical mask to their face. Believe it or not, I almost spend $1100 on one early in the pandemic when it was impossible to get N95's...but you could still get a PAPR from welding supply stores. Go big or go home!

@Infoseepage That's certainly extravagant. :P