Israeli Professor Shows Virus Follows Fixed Pattern

Townhall ^ | April 15, 2020 | Marina Medvin

[beejaa]

Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, who also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way. In the exact, same, way. His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week.

The Wuhan Virus follows its own pattern, he told Mako, an Israeli news agency. It is a fixed pattern that is not dependent on freedom or quarantine. “There is a decline in the number of infections even [in countries] without closures, and it is similar to the countries with closures,” he wrote in his paper.

“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concluded. The reason why coronavirus follows a fixed pattern is yet unknown. "I have no explanation,” he told Mako, “There are is kinds of speculation: maybe it's climate-related, maybe the virus has its own life cycle.” But what about Italy and their staggering 12% mortality rate? “The health system in Italy has its own problems. It has nothing to do with coronavirus. In 2017 it also collapsed because of the flu,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel told the news agency. Indeed, Italy’s exceptionally high coronavirus mortality rate is eerily reminiscent of their unusually high flu mortality rates. Supportive of this theory, Germany, has low flu infection and mortality rates and similarly low coronavirus rates. Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concludes in his analysis summary paper that the data from the past 50 days indicates that the closure policies of the quarantine countries can be replaced by more moderate social distancing policies. The numbers simply do not support quarantine or economic closure. On the reasonableness of Israel’s unprecedented quarantine and closure, he commented to the news agency, “I think it's mass hysteria. I have no other way to describe it. 4,500 people die each year from the flu in Israel because of complications, so close the country because of that? No. I don't see a reason to do it because of a lower-risk epidemic.” While the American policies remain less restrictive than those of Israel, it is important to understand the origins of our own “mass hysteria” response. President Trump urged a strong coronavirus response after consulting with Dr. Fauci and his team, who relied on a British model predicting 2.2 million deaths in the United States and 500,000 deaths in the U.K. But that model was developed by Professor Neil Ferguson, who had a history of wildly overestimating death rates through his prediction models. Professor Ferguson was not known for his reliability, and his 2001 disease model was criticized as “not fit for purpose” after it predicted that up to 150,000 people could die in the U.K. from mad cow disease (177 deaths to date). Ferguson’s U.K. coronavirus deaths prediction is now down to 20,000 people, 4% of the original prediction. Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel has mathematically shown us that coronavirus closures were a mistake. It's a tough reality. Americans lost their jobs and businesses went under because the United States, along with most first world nations, acted on the chilling predictions of a severely flawed model, a reading of Professor Ferguson’s tarot cards. Hindsight is 20/20, so we have to be realistic with our criticism. President Trump did not want 2.2 million Americans to die and did what he thought was necessary to save our lives, relying on a model his advisors told him was trustworthy. It's done. It happened. But it doesn't mean that he should continue the course.

[beejaa]

I have two comments. The article does not address the issue of how many people could die in the two different scenarios while the virus follows its course. Of course, some people might die because of the economic shutdown through something like suicide. These things will be discussed for decades. All kinds of books will be written. My second comment is that we've been hearing about the approach taken by Sweden, because they never closed down their economy. Sweden has a population of a little over 10 million people and the people tend to socially distance anyway. Their situation is quite different from that of the US.

[faithhopecharity]

The majority of the USA infection is in just one metro area (Ny/NJ). With a couple of smaller exceptions, this virus has been tremendously overblown. And still several times the number of people usually die from seasonal flu which we don’t shut the country down for. Just saying a little perspective from the experience we now have — will enable the politicians to end this Lockdown of America now.

[beejaa]

Yep, you’re right about NY.

Trump announced the plan to open up the country tonight. It goes in three stages. The different governors will decide when they’ve met the criteria for Stage One, Two and Three. (Hopefully you have a reasonable gov. who has not been expressing an inner Mussolini.) He said that some states are ready right now to open up - places like Wyoming, North Dakota. Big relief. At least we’re on our way.

[tinyowl]

"Their situation is quite different from that of the US."

You're right it can be discussed forever, the world will only every know one way it dealt with it (though some countries varying.) Mostly the coulda woulda shoulda is educated ... not guessing ... but incomplete deduction ... some deduction, some guess-induction.

That said, to me the overriding reality of the virus is that it does the same thing everywhere. It explodes then chills out. Sweden's CURVE says economic shut down is not the answer. I think they are running a higher death count per million but not by a hell of a lot and arguably they are just sucking up their deaths early -> i.e., slightly less flat curve, so to speak, but same volume underneath the curve when the fat lady sings.

It's time to re-open, and those who feel themselves frail or simply have less tolerance for risk - be they snowflakes, or wise, or simply biochemically different when it comes to risk tolerance -> it's time for those of us who want to go play the sport of being American again to go out onto the field. Those who want to watch from the stands are free to do so, for a short while, and those who want to stay out of the stadium are also free to do so.

Life itself is risk. Death smiles at us all. It's time for those of us who want to ... to be free to smile back.

That may sound unscientific, but I say it having reviewed the numbers in depth like many have. I think those who know the MOST about this are the LEAST afraid. And knowing about this does not require being an epidemiologist. Their models are incomplete too. YES there are unknowns about possible lasting effects after recovering. But that's frankly true every time you take a drink of booze, or go driving in your car, or start a relationship, or a job, or new hobby, or roll out of bed.

Again, as Marcus Aurelius said: Death smiles as us all. All a man can do is smile back.

The only other choice is willful ignorance or fear. Not for me, and not for most Americans.

We should go forward with our eyes open, knowing we may look back and regret a step because we didn't have the luxury of knowing everything, have some patience with and respect for the rational of the fearful but not allow them to drag us into their obsessions ... and get out there and git 'er done.

There comes a time with you know enough, not everything, but enough, that its' time to declare "F*ck it."

[John Milner]

Are we sure Sweden is going to drop similar to other places where quarantines are in place.

I was thinking I saw they are still on the upswing in cases. Until it actually shows a decrease like places with quarantines I will not necessarily believe this hypothesis.

[beejaa]

Trump announced the plan to open up tonight. You’ll be hearing about it, certainly by tomorrow. A state needs to meet the criteria of Stage One before moving onto Stage Two, followed then by Stage Three. He said that some states like Wyoming, North Dakota and others, are ready right now to open up. Yippie. We’re on the way.

[tinyowl]

Sweet -> I started his news conference but got distracted -> will go finish.

[The Fop]

For Italy and New York, the barn door was shut long after the horses ran away..... Both areas were probably completely infected, and death tolls are similar....for Cuomo to say that steep drop in hospitalizations is absolutely due to quarantine is self serving BS.... At this point it’s a question of whether other parts of the country can avoid the same kind of per capita deaths that New York and Italy suffered...but the coronapocalypse doesn’t seem to be materializing anywhere

[JudgemAll]

Looks like Fauci scammed America and Trump.

As Thatcher said, we only need to fail once in their attempted attacks and scams. Global Warming is one such

[MrBambaLaMamba]

I believe Sweden did nothing in the hopes that the corona virus would take care of their Muslim problem.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Lockdown is not “social distancing”. You can do all sorts of social distancing without actually locking people up in their houses and shuttering their businesses.

The article of course does not address “how many people could die”. It is an actual case study, looking at the actual results in multiple countries.

And it finds what I noticed, and is easy to see — every country, no matter when they start their lockdowns, or if they do them or not, seems to have the same curve.

ANd states in our country have the same curve, even though some got the virus early and locked down late (new york), while others started growing after their lockdowns (virginia).

It seems remarkably odd that all the curves are the same, but odder is that we hit some peak even if we don’t change behavior, and the peak does not nearly correspond to the herd immunity numbers, as peaks usually do in these graphs.

I’m still holding out hope that this indicates a large population of infected but symptomless, or better a large population of naturally immune people.

[CharlesWayneCT]

In Virginia, we could open up 90% of our counties and cities, leaving nothing more than a 50% rule for occupancy, and requiring seats free at ball games, theaters, and churches.

Our first major outbreak was in James City. They have pretty much quashed it, having only 1 or 2 cases at most in the last week or so. Virginia beach also suppressed what looked like an outbreak.

Fairfax is hopeless, and the hispanic portions of Prince William are getting overrun because they live in multiple-family dwellings and don’t have a good grasp of social distancing.

[beejaa]

De Blasio was late in responding, and then you have New York City itself. Social distancing on the New York subway - fuggedaboudit. USA Today, March 25 - “The coronavirus can exist on stainless steel objects for two to three days.” The subway consists of stainless steel objects. No other US city is that congested. L.A., for instance, is very spread out.

Italy is another story. Northern Italy has a lot of commercial ties to China, lots of traffic to and from China. They’ve sold industries to China and have lots of Chinese workers. They also have an aging population and a bad health care system. I read that their hospital system was overwhelmed in 2017 because of the flu.

So yea, those two areas were set up for corona disaster.

[beejaa]

I live in Virginia. There’s nothing going on in the western part of the state. I count five counties with truly nothing, if you look at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/virginia-coronavirus-cases.html

As you said, it’s NOVA, plus Richmond and the Norfolk area. We have the Canterbury Rehab Center in western Henrico with 46 dead now. I believe they’ve set a fatality record for a nursing facility.

I’m hoping that Ralph Northam will reconsider his June 10 date. I believe he based that on the https://covid19.healthdata.org graph that used to have Virginia peaking on May 20. Now we’re supposed to peak on April 26 according to the graph. FWIW, you can try emailing the governor.

[MAGAthon]

from the moment the models turned out to be so spectacularly wrong, it should have been possible to immediately fully re-open the economies around the world that have shut down to varying degrees.

however, the covid crazies changed the story...again and again and again.

the models weren’t wrong, they said. it was the lockdowns that caused the numbers to peak and decrease. wrong.

then they said we couldn’t open until there was a vaccine! no chance of that happening any time in the foreseeable future.

then they said lockdowns couldn’t end until they had tested the entire world population or something! zero chance of that.

then they said lockdowns couldn’t end until surveillance/tracking etc was up and running! no thank you.

the FakeNewsMSM goes along with it all.

the public must not. it’s a scam. in the US, it’s a presidential election year.

[fulltlt]

It seems the taboo topic that no one talks about is the sanitary habits of those most affected. There are some groups of people that have extremely bad sanitary habits. Which groups are affected more than others? Now look at their sanitary behavior.

[trebb]

Yep - much we'll never know - which means the debate will go on because any long-lasting debates are fueled by there being no possible correct answer - lie how many might have actually died had mitigation not taken place.

Hindsight always suggests where the original errors/misreadings may have been and then it becomes a modified version of "fuzzy logic" built around the data that was collected being mixed with other suppositions...I'm heartened by this article though.