Israeli military scientist, former general and ex-politician analyzing the coronavirus cases said the COVID-19 pandemic would peak after 40 days and later, in 70 days it would almost go down to zero.
Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel made the claim after a 'simple statistical analysis,' and it is irrespective of where the virus strikes and the government's measures, he told to the country's Channel 12 last Monday, reported Times of Israel.
He is the head of the Security Studies program, Tel Aviv University and presently is the chairman of the National Council for Research and Development. Previously, noble laureate Michael Levitt made a similar claim.
Set pattern
The analysis was made on the basis of the growth and decline of newer cases across the world. He saw a "set pattern" globally and said the numbers speak for themselves.
He supported social distancing, but shutting world economies, according to Ben-Israel constituted a 'demonstrable error' looking at the statistics. He termed lockdowns and closures as "mass hysteria," especially at a time when most of the country's population is not at high risk. Simple social distancing could have been sufficient, he added.
In the analysis published, he wrote that it was the end of exponential growth of coronavirus cases and it is critical to remove the "bottleneck" due to less testing. He recommended for the expansion of testing and in focusing on acquiring test kits and reagents.
Criticism
In the TV talk Prof. Gabi Barbash, the former Health Ministry director-general and director of a hospital said that Ben-Israel was mistaken as the death toll would be higher had some countries not taken mitigation measures. Ben-Israel cited the nations such as Singapore, Taiwan, and Sweden, which did not shut their economies to prove his point.
To support his argument, Barbash showed New York cases opposing Ben-Israel's claim. Ben-Israel responded that even New York's trend was in line with the analysis showing peak in 40 days, but he had no explanation of how it came about so. "There are all kinds of speculations. Maybe it's related to climate, or the virus has a life-span of its own," he said.
Countries like Italy had high death toll because the health services were already overwhelmed and it had collapsed during the 2017 flu, he said.
