Israel is once again engaged in a serious battle against the deadly SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus. Israeli media reported early Thursday that a whopping 532 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, were diagnosed over the past 24 hours.
On the Health Ministry’s coronavirus dashboard there were 448 new infections registered, with the total number of active cases standing at 5,796. Those figures included 189 patients who were hospitalized, 28 of whom required ventilator support. The death toll remained at 308.
But Israel is not the only nation by any means slugging it out against a second wave of the virus, which so far has killed nearly half a million people.
According to the “WorldOMeter” website, 9,556,941 people around the planet have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and 485,594 have died from the virus.
Slightly more than half of those who have been sickened by this disease (about 54 percent) – 5,196,615 people worldwide – have recovered from the virus.
In Israel, the statistics are much better.
A total of 22,139 Israelis have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, with about 70 percent (15,961) having recovered from the illness so far.
‘Second Wave’ Battle Begins in UK, US
In the United Kingdom health officials are warning a second wave of coronavirus infections is a “real risk.”
Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians, Surgeons, GPs and Nursing and the chair of the British Medical Association said in a letter to heads of the country’s political parties “the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk. Many elements of the infrastructure needed to contain the virus are beginning to be put in place, but substantial challenges remain.”
In the United States, top federal infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told The Wall Street Journal in an interview, “People keep talking about a second wave. We’re still in a first wave,” but warned there could indeed by a resurgence of the illness if Americans don’t stick to the basic safety guidelines they’ve been taught.
On Wednesday the states of Florida (5,508 cases), Texas (5,551 cases) and California (7,149 cases) broke their own records for daily cases of COVID-19, according to a database at Johns Hopkins University.
The United States recorded a nationwide one-day total of 34,720 new confirmed cases, the highest level recorded since late April when the level peaked at 36,400 cases.
The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – the “tri-state area” – meanwhile made a travel ban agreement to insist travelers from states with high COVID-19 rates to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in their states.