The First Wave of COVID-19 in Israel - Initial Analysis of Publicly Available Data

Last, M.

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Israel on February 21, 2020. Within approximately 30 days, the total number of confirmed cases climbed up to 1,000, accompanied by a doubling period of less than 3 days. About one week later, after this number exceeded 4,000 cases, and following some extremely strict measures taken by the Israeli government, the daily detection rate started a sharp decrease from the peak value of 1,131 down to slightly more than 100 new confirmed cases on April 30. Motivated by this encouraging data, similar to the trends observed in many other countries, along with the growing economic pressures, the Israeli government started relaxing its emergency regulations as part of an "exit strategy". This article attempts to analyze the currently available data on Israel and a country of similar size (Sweden) in order to understand the local dynamics of COVID-19, assess the effect of the implemented intervention measures, and discuss some plausible scenarios for the foreseeable future.