''Another half a million infected by next week': The terrifying forecast

January 6, 2022   

Prof. Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute of Science spoke today (Thursday) with Gideon Oko on 103FM about the rampage of the Omicron wave in Israel, and the morbidity figures that are breaking records every day. Did you divide? For thousands of years we dreamed of Jerusalem, so now we want to dirty it? On Saturday: The mother rested, the child pulled the trigger – and was hospitalized in serious condition Are you crazy? Is your child unprotected? One in every 150 children who contracted the virus was hospitalized Prof. Segal opened: "I estimate that at this stage the picture is relatively reliable. Right now the doubling rate is very stable. Doubling every about 2.7 days. This is the rate that we estimated two and a half weeks ago, and we also presented it to the cabinet, and it continues at this rate for the time being in a very stable manner. "And also, what we see all over the world - almost regardless of the actions that the various countries take - is simply a variant that is so contagious, the rate of spread is determined mainly by the biology of the virus. Therefore, I think that the picture so far is reliable. Starting tomorrow, in fact, we will no longer get a reliable picture. At some point we would not have received it either because of the shortage of tests, but mainly because the testing policy has also been changed." He added: "I am saying that because of the change in the testing policy, which will actually now allow PCR tests only for risk groups and people aged 60 and over, so we may not see these numbers, but they will definitely be there in practice. ""In fact, if last week there were about 60,000 confirmed cases - and of course we are not tracking everyone, so in practice, in the last week, we have definitely crossed the threshold of over 100,000 infected people, and we see that we are at least doubling twice a week - then I estimate that between now and next week, about half a million more Israelis may also be infected. "Beyond that, I estimate that we will later begin to see the impact of this very large number of infected people affecting the rate of spread of the disease, simply because many people who have been infected will begin to accumulate, and they will actually develop immunity naturally, and we will begin to see a slowdown. ""It is possible that in two or three weeks, we will actually reach the peak of the morbidity, and from there, I hope, the decline will begin." He continued: "So of course every country behaves differently, but really this time, if we simply do the calculation according to the progress in the rate of infection, which is truly unprecedented, compared to what we saw in previous variants, then we simply see that in two or three weeks, at this rate of infection, we will accumulate a total of, possibly even two million people in Israel. That is, almost one in four will be infected. And I estimate that numbers of this magnitude will already have a very dramatic effect on the coefficient. From there, we may definitely see the decline." Prof. Segal was asked whether Omicron would protect us from the next variants - and replied: "We will probably see protection, certainly against Omicron itself and other variants, for example the Delta variant. But regarding other variants, I think it is always a possibility that there will be a variant that will break through the immunity that Omicron will acquire, just as Omicron itself is relatively capable of breaking through the immunity of previous variants. "So I think we will not be able to know that another variant will not come, but we can hope that after we get through this wave, we will have peace for some period of time.".