STUDY: 65% OF CHAREDIM HAVE HAD COVID
NEARLY 65 per cent of the UK’s strictlyOrthodox community may have been infected by Covid-19, a new study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has found.
Among adults and children in secondary school within the Charedi community, this figures rises to a staggering 75 per cent, according to the newly published research.
This means that two out of three of them have had the disease.
The study, conducted with the University College London’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and the Medical Advocacy and Referral Service (MARS), a healthcare organisation based in the Strictly-Orthodox Jewish communities, also showed that 28 per cent of children under the age of five had been infected, rising rapidly to more than 50 per cent among children of primary school age.
Last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, members of a tightly-knit strictly-Orthodox Jewish community in the UK approached LSHTM researchers to help them understand the extent of infection in their community.
The JC understands that a sizeable donation towards the cost of the research was provided by the community itself.
The study, which was published on Tuesday, said that the “estimates are amongst the highest sero-prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 described anywhere in the world to date.”
Infection rates in the strictly-Orthodox community may have peaked after the Purim festival last March, before the UK government introduced the first lockdown later that month.
The subsequent fall in cases shows that many in the community obeyed the rules after they were introduced nationally by the government.
The data, which is yet to be peer reviewed, suggests that although suspected infections in the UK Charedi community fell sharply during the first lockdown after it was announced on March 16, cases then began to rise again throughout the autumn of 2020.
Noting the drop in the infection levels after lockdown was introduced, the report states:
“Rapid declines in self-reported illness followed the introduction and adherence to lockdown in March, demonstrating that even in this highly connected community, such measures are effective at reducing transmission.”
The overall 65 per cent Covid-19 infection rate among the Charedi community compares to recent estimates by the Office for National Statistics of 6.9 per cent overall nationally and 10.8 per cent in London.
The infection rate among children aged 2-15 in the strictly-Orthodox community is shown to be four times higher than the reported national average.