Israel's Rising Cases in June 2021

Israel had implemented much more restrictive precautions earlier in 2021 than any of the states in the USA had ever taken during their more cautious times.  This pushed their spread down significantly and combined with their vaccination rate to allow them to see only 0.3 cases per 100,000 people per day from May 1 through June 20.  For comparison, MA essentially declared victory and gave up on the pretense of working on things when we reached high single digit cases per 100,000 people per day.  Just like last summer, we have coasted along with diminishing returns on our case-reductions since, barely getting below 1 case per 100,000 people per day.

Here's where the story turns to one of concern though.  Israel has a fully vaccinated rate of 57.2% of their population (MA is just slightly higher at 62.1%) and yet they are seeing a big uptick in their rates (in comparison to where they were just a few weeks ago.  Their 7-day average went from less than 0.2 cases per 100,000 people for any 7-days starting May 25 through June 12 to now seeing a 7-day average higher than 3.5 for the days Jun 29-July 5.  For those doing the math, that's a 1,750% increase in just 17 days.  And what's more, the trend does not appear to be changing.  

MA, on the other hand, appears to have bottomed out much higher than the 0.1 cases per 100,000 per day that Israel saw at their low point (June June through June 9) at 0.9 cases per 100,000 per day the week before last and having already started increasing again with 1.1 cases per 100,000 per day last week.  Last year, it was August before we returned to mid-single digit cases per 100,000 per day... given what Israel has seen and that the low-point this year was mid-June instead of the last week of June, I expect we'll get there before the end of July this time around.

Stay safe. Stay informed. Keep others safe.

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