No healthy young adults died of Covid-19 in Israel – data

The Ministry of Health has promised to publish records of all coronavirus deaths by vaccination status and age.

Not a single healthy person under age 50 died of Covid-19 in Israel, according to data released by the country’s ministry of health in response to a freedom of information request from lawyer Ori Xabi.

“Why were all the extreme measures of school closures, vaccination of children, and lockdowns needed?” internal medicine specialist Yoav Yehezkelli, a prominent critic of Israel’s Covid-19 policies, asked the Epoch Times.

In addition to requesting the number of Covid-19 deaths that had occurred in patients under 50 with no underlying health conditions, Xabi also asked the ministry to provide the average age of patients who died of the disease, segmented by vaccination status, as well as the annual number of cardiac arrest cases between 2018 and 2022.

The average age of fatalities among those vaccinated against Covid-19 was 80.2 years, while the average for the unvaccinated was 77.4, according to the ministry.

However, the MoH claimed to be unable to provide cardiac arrest information for the years 2021 and 2022, explaining that the information had not yet been transferred to them.

A study published last year analyzing data from the Israel National Emergency Medical Services found a shocking 25% spike in emergency services calls due to cardiac arrests for patients aged 16 to 39 taking place from January to May 2021.

However, Sharon Elroy-Pries, head of Public Health Services for the Ministry of Health, condemned efforts to draw a connection to the start of the Covid-19 vaccination program in December 2020 and denied that there had been an increase in cardiac arrests during that time, or any increase in deaths of young people.

Cardiologist Retsef Levi, one of the authors of the study, pointed out that the ministry had claimed not to have information on cardiac arrests for 2021 and 2022, meaning one of the two claims had to be false.

While the MoH insisted the data it provided to Xabi regarding patients aged 18 to 49 was limited to cases in which an epidemiological investigation had been completed, it is known to have access to a database that includes extensive data on all patients, including underlying conditions, irrespective of whether an epidemiological investigation was performed.

Yehezkelli called the MoH’s response “a bit naive,” questioning why it had withheld the full data, but pointed out that the statistics vindicated government critics. “It was definitely a disease that actually only endangered the elderly,” he said, pointing out that the MoH’s numbers showed the average age of death from Covid-19 was 80.

The MoH has promised to supply all-cause mortality data segmented by vaccination status and age by the end of the month, following more than two years of stonewalling in response to Xabi’s freedom of information requests.

Image credit: CDC