Israel is now the 5th most infected country, per million citizens, in the world. The first is Czechia, then Bahrain, Georgia, Slovenia and then Israel, followed by the USA, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Argentina, Estonia and Sweden, according to ncov2019.live/data.
Some have said that Israel’s high rate is due to the inordinate amount of testing. School children have to show proof they’d been tested before going to class. Israel’s Ministry of Health has passed out rapid tests to be performed at home, and the Ministry has also encouraged citizens to buy over-the-counter rapid tests if they suspect they are ill, and only then go to a certified testing center.
As the recent Jewish High Holidays approached, Israel TV reported seemingly endless lines of cars stretched from the testing booths to the far horizon. Israelis complained they’d waiting between an hour to two-hours for a test. Some critics have pointed to a certain hypersensitivity among the Jewish people when it comes to health and storming the gates of testing centers only underlines this tendency.
In the chart above, from September 20, 2021, Israel had a positivity rate of 5.8% and conducted 14,201 tests per million cases with 829 confirmed cases per million, compared to the USA’s 10% positivity rate and just 4,266 tests per million, with 407 daily confirmed cases per million people. The UK with a positivity rate of 3.0 tested 14,163 daily with 450 confirmed cases per million. Not surprisingly, New Zealand, that has essentially closed her borders, had only a 0.10 positivity rate, and Australia only 0.8 positivity rate.
In Israel, as of Tuesday, 4,800 cases were reported, the lowest since August. But health officials attribute this to the Jewish High Holidays and the slacking off of demand at the testing centers and not to an actual decline of the pandemic. On Tuesday the positivity rate had dropped to 4.6% and a R factor of 0.83. 42% of the new cases were under 11-years-old, an age where they could not yet be vaccinated.
39% of all those positive were from the Arab sector. Arab sector C-19 czar Ayman Saif says the high number was because Arab students did not take off school over the High Holidays as did the Jewish students.
Pfizer has announced that their vaccine is effective for those under 11. Israel is only waiting for FDA approval to begin vaccinations of children 5-11, who will be given a smaller dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
As of Wednesday, Covid-19 has claimed 7,582 deaths in Israel, 1,123 people were hospitalized, and of them 723 were in serious condition and 152 were on ventilators with approximately 50 people on ECMO (machines that recycle the blood and add oxygen). Nearly 70% of those in serious condition were unvaccinated. 84% of those in serious condition who were under 60 were unvaccinated. 3.4% of those in serious condition had three vaccines.
Around the world, there are 230,446,353 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 4,725,198 deaths, and 24,943,529 active cases. The USA still leads the number of confirmed cases at 43,246,791, with 696,918 deaths and 9,719,817 active cases.
According to a report in Huffpost.com, Covid-19 has now killed as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic: approximately 675,000 people. However, the US population was then only one-third of what it is today. Worldwide, the 1918-19 influenza pandemic killed 50 million people. This at a time when the world’s population was a quarter the size of today’s.
Medical experts now criticize leaders in some parts of America over a failure to take maximum advantage of the vaccines available today compared to the 1918-19 pandemic. “Big pockets of American society-and, worse, their leaders- have thrown this away,” according to Dr. Howard Market of the University of Michigan. Experts go on to say that Covid-19 may not entirely disappear, but hope it will become a seasonal bug as immunity strengthens through vaccination and repeated infection.
BDS & The ‘Squad’
Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid downplayed the turmoil surrounding the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s exclusion from the proposed federal budget bill of a $1 billion allocation to Israel to finance the vital Iron Dome missile defense system.
The vocal opponents of the Iron Dome inclusion were the ‘Squad’ of progressive lawmakers led by “Reps. Alexandria Ocasion-cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, rashjida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, along with fellow progressives Betty McCollum and Pramila Jayapal.” This ‘Squad’ “had warned House leadership that they would not have their votes if the bill proceeded with the extra $1 billion.”
According to a statement by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, “Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday night spoke with US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. During the phone call, Lapid was reassured that the move was a ‘technical delay’ related to discussions over the US debt ceiling and that the defense funding would be approved at a later date.”
Media sources said that Pelosi had included the $1 billion for the Iron Dome at the last minute in a bid to get Republican supporters of Israel to vote for the budget bill. The ‘Squad’ protested to this last minute inclusion of the Iron Dome support, with no strings attached. In the past the ‘Squad’ has been quite vocal in opposition to military support of Israel. Senate sources say that the support for the Iron Dome will be submitted separately later in the week and is expected to pass without incident.
In the recent May war with Hamas, when Hamas attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles, the Iron Dome anti-missile system saved many Israelis from death and prevented untold destruction. One analyst pointed out that had the Iron Dome not done such a good job Israel would have been hit hard ,eliciting a destructive counter-attack on Gaza resulting in the loss of countless Gazans’ lives. The ‘Squad’s objection, rather than helping the Palestinians, said one pundit, only put the Palestinians more at risk. And, said the pundit, the ‘Squad’ is supporting Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the USA and many European countries. AIPAC (American Israel Pubic Affairs Committee) said that “extremists in Congress are playing politics with Israeli & Palestinian lives.”
In a related matter, the US state of Arizona joined other states in withdrawing their pension fund’s monies from Unilever, the parent company of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s. According to Ynetnews, the decision was taken in compliance with a 2019 law barring local government agencies from holding investments in firms that boycott Israel. Ben & Jerry’s board of directors announced recently it would ban sale of its products in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Escapees
All six of the prisoner that had escaped from Gilboa prison last week have been captured. Reportedly, they dug a tunnel using spoons and other make-shift implements. Four of the prisoners were captured in a field a few days after the escape. The other two were captured in the West Bank town of Jenin. No one was injured in the captures.
Also, 80% of Palestinians have said in a recent poll that they want to replace PA president Mahmoud Abbas. The survey was conducted by Khalil Shikaki, a veteran Palestinian pollster. Abbas was elected to a four-year term in 2005. No national election has been held since then. Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza, is the Palestinian Authority’s chief rival, and while Hamas has a relatively low support, according to the timesofisrael, Hamas’ popularity skyrocketed during the May war with Israel. According to reports, many Palestinians see Ramallah, the seat of the PA, as corrupt and ineffective in achieving statehood. Recently, Israeli officials have spoken about strengthening the PA. The poll also showed 56% of the Palestinians viewed such measures positively.
Diplomacy
Israel’s Prime Minister Neftali Bennett will address the UN General Assembly on September 27th. Reportedly, Bennett will speak on the subject of Israel’s national security and regional issues. Iran’s rapid advancement towards a nuclear weapon will also be brought up. This will be Bennett’s second trip to Washington since the elections. He met with U.S. President Biden in August. Bennett will be in New York over the upcoming Simchat Torah holiday.
