January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Just the day before the commemoration, data released by Israel’s National Bureau of Statistics showed that about 5,300 survivors of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II in Israel were infected with the novel coronavirus throughout the last year.
Of these, 900 died after infection, and the death rate reached 17%.
The Israeli government defines anyone who is “exposure” under Nazi rule as a survivor.
This includes those who lived under Nazi Germany occupation or were directly affected by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, as well as those who fled to escape from the Nazis.
According to reports by the Times of Israel on the 26th, more than 3,000 Israelis were identified as survivors of the World War II Holocaust last year; in the same year, about 17,000 survivors died, including 900 who died of the novel coronavirus.
As of December last year, the total number of Holocaust survivors in Israel reached 179,600.
In addition, all Holocaust survivors are over 75 years old, 17% are over 90 years old, and nearly 850 survivors are over 100 years old.
About 60% of the survivors are women, while 64% are from Europe.
On January 27, 1945, the former Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz concentration camp. Since 1996, Germany has designated this day as the “Day of Remembrance of Nazi Victims”.
On November 1, 2005, the 60th plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution, deciding to designate January 27 of each year as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
At present, Israel is being hit by a third wave of epidemics, with an average of more than 8,000 new cases per day, and it is also one of the highest infection rates in the world.
According to the epidemic data of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of Beijing time on the 27th, Israel has had a total of 617,168 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,513 deaths. Among them, the cumulative number of confirmed cases accounts for about 6.8% of the country’s total population of 9 million.
On December 20, Israel started the COVID-19 vaccination work of Pfizer last year, and more than 2.6 million people (about 29% of the total population) have been vaccinated against the first dose.
However, the effectiveness of Pfizer vaccine has aroused doubts from people in the country.
The Times of Israel reported on January 19 that according to data from the Israeli Ministry of Health, more than 12,400 people have tested positive for COVID-19, accounting for 6.6% of the total, after about 189,000 people were vaccinated against Pfizer.
Nachman Ash, Israel’s head of the coronavirus pandemic, said the protective effect of the first dose of the vaccine was “not as effective as we thought.” Data on the protective effect of the first dose of vaccine on the virus is lower than that of “Pfizer’s introduction”.
In the severe epidemic situation, Israel has also re-implemented strict epidemic prevention measures.
According to the Associated Press, on the 25th local time, the Israeli government approved the suspension of almost all flights to and from Israel, with the exception of some medical, cargo and other humanitarian flights.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “with very rare exceptions, we are closing air traffic to prevent the inflow of the novel coronavirus mutant virus, but also to ensure the progress of our vaccination efforts.”
