About 700,000 Israelis who have yet to receive a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine account for 70% of the country's severe caseload, a senior health expert said on Sunday.
Speaking to the Ynet studio in an interview, Prof. Eran Segal — a scientist advising the government on its pandemic response and creator of the Weizmann Institute of Science's coronavirus prediction model — estimated that had this group been vaccinated, Israeli hospitals would have been currently dealing with about 200 seriously ill COVID-19 patients instead of 588 as of Sunday morning — almost two-thirds decline.
Segal said that this is one of three groups on which Israel should focus in its efforts to encourage the population to get vaccinated.
According to him, the second group consists of 1.7 million Israelis who have completed a two-dose vaccination regimen over six months ago and have yet to receive a booster shot. The twice dosed are substantially less protected than before and account for about 20% of all severe cases.
The third group is comprised of those who have recovered from the disease over six months ago and have yet to receive a single COVID-19 jab.
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Government's pandemic response adviser Prof. Eran Segal
(Photo: Weizmann Institute of Science)
Segal noted that although members of this group, which numbers some 300,000 people, are better protected from the disease than the unvaccinated, they are still three times more likely to contract the virus again than their fully vaccinated compatriots.
Segal predicted that the number of severe COVID-19 cases in Israel would decline to between 200 to 400 by the end of October at the current vaccination rate.