A plague on everyone’s houses: 6 things to know for March 5

1. Living on quarantime: What elections? Israel has jumped fully back into coronavirus fear mode, announcing a series of measures that have effectively shut down air travel to much of Europe, sending tens of thousands of Israelis into quarantine, and impacting public life, religious life and really normal life for much of the country.

• Israel has only had a handful of cases, and no deaths, but the sheer number of people being forced to lock themselves inside, 50,000 to 80,000 according to Health Ministry estimates, is enough to lead the news agenda on Wednesday and Thursday, replacing elections as the top story despite the last few votes still being tallied.
• The new directives, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advice against handshaking and thousands put in isolation lead all three major dailies on Thursday morning.
• Channel 13 news reports that 40 jailers are among those in isolation, and the army’s announcement banning most flights abroad for soldiers also makes major news.
• Channel 12 calls Wednesday’s announcement dramatic and Yedioth describes it as “unprecedented.”
• A health official tells the paper that Israel could be facing a major outbreak in weeks.
• “We are taking steps to track and minimize the spread of the coronavirus, but we expect that within two-three weeks it will spread. We are talking about thousands of sick and a three percent death rate,” the official is quoted saying.

2. MOAR restrictions: Even with Israel taking more drastic steps than nearly anyone else, some are calling for more.

• “With all due respect to studies, the health of children and staff is more important,” the head of the secondary schools administrators’ union tells Army Radio.
• But Ynet reports that some parents are having trouble navigating “the fine line between caution and panic.”
• “WhatsApp groups of parents are filling with rumors and fake news describing kids who came back from abroad as sick,” the news site reports, including one case where a parent essentially bullied a 6-year-old girl whose mother had been in Italy, calling her “the Corona Kid.”
• But Channel 12’s Arad Nir thinks everyone should just take a chill pill.
• “The Health Ministry prefers to scare people and put up restrictions, which cause a surplus of fear, which then allow the ministry to take even more harsh steps,” he complains.

3. Mr. Virus comes to Jerusalem: The morning brings news of the virus’s effects spreading to Jerusalem and the West Bank, largely untouched until now, though many news reports are just copy and pastes of Health Ministry press releases.

• Walla reports that Palestinians suspect four workers at a hotel in Beit Jala may have the disease, and have responded by shutting down much of neighboring Bethlehem.
• According to Channel 12 news, the workers likely got the virus from Greek tourists, who also visited Israel, though no info is yet available about where the Greeks tourists went.
• In Jerusalem, the news that an American tourist who tested positive for the virus spent the last week in February cavorting around Jerusalem, in buses and restaurants, also gains major coverage.
• The case is likely to add to questions around the Health Ministry’s directives, which have focused on Asia and Europe but ignored the US, where a cluster has been identified in a Jewish community north of New York City, and where there have been rampant questions about Washington’s response.
• JTA reports that AIPAC too may have been a hotbed of conservative coronavirus carriers, with the group telling attendees “that a New York group in attendance had been in contact with someone who has the virus.” It says local authorities consider the exposure to be “low risk.”

4. Chill and Netflix: Nobody knows exactly how many are already in quarantine. Yedioth Ahronoth reports more than 50,000, while Haaretz puts the figure at 60,000 to 70,000. Channel 12 news reports that the number is over 77,000.

• Among those in quarantine is Israel Hayom editor Boaz Bismuth, though it does not keep him from sticking his face on the paper’s front page.
• Bismuth, who spent Tuesday night celebrating Likud’s supposed victory as a panelist for Channel 12 news, tells his staff and the channel that they don’t need to worry about him giving them germs: “I feel great and am showing no symptoms. Just a little responsibility and a few days at home. A chance to organize my closet.”
• In Yedioth, columnist Chen Arzi-Srour sees Israelis’ willingness to go into a quarantine as a lesson in how far normally wanderlustful Israelis are willing to go giving up personal freedoms for the greater good of their community.
• “People are imprisoning themselves in a small room with Netflix and a single window just because it’s what the Health Ministry told them. They are willing to give up on their freedom for anonymous people just because it’s the responsible thing to do,” she writes. “If we’ve gained anything from this, it’s about our ability to go outside ourselves. To manage to create communal responsibility and solidarity, and renew our trust in the system. These are things we can strengthen every day, not just when a deadly virus strikes the world.”

5. Flagrant foul: Not everybody is on board with the directives. Despite the clear directive that those who were in Spain need to quarantine, Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv went ahead with its basketball game against the Turkish Anadolu Efes S.K. team in front of thousands of fans.

• The team claims that it did not think it had to call off the game and authorities never told them to, though the ministry disputes that.
• In the lead-up to the game, a Channel 12 reporter stood outside the arena reporting that he was unable to get a straight answer as to whether the game would be played, and whether fans would be allowed in.
• Only a few thousand fans attended, with most staying home since they knew large events were being banned.
• “Why should I put myself in the same place with people who might turn out to be sick? I think there was some serious irresponsibility on the part of the Health Ministry here,” one fan tells the News 5 website.
• Health Minister Yaakov Litzman has subsequently threatened legal action against the team.
• Nonetheless, Army Radio reports that the team is ignoring it and a possible ban on them leaving the country, and getting ready to fly to Belgrade for a game.
• They aren’t the only ones in trouble. Channel 13 news reports that the ministry is also seeking action against the manager of a Red Pirate toy store outside Tel Aviv where several people have gotten sick, claiming that he lied about only being in the store for a little while, when he was actually there for much longer.

6. 62 versus 1: There is also some election news, most of it around the potential Blue and White push for a law that will keep a prime minister under indictment from serving, and Avigdor Liberman’s support for such a bill, which would give it a majority of 62.

• “Not so fast,” reads a headline in Yedioth Ahronoth, hilarious because the paper had been the fastest to declare Netanyahu the winner, with immunity to boot.
• In Haaretz, Barak Ravid describes the technocratic government that will need to be formed to push the law through.
• “Such a government would not be formed to govern, but to end Netanyahu’s rule, to untie the political knot and follow through on the wishes of a majority of Israelis. It would be a government that was formed for a limited period of 100 days, and would operate in accordance with a bare-bones coalition agreement that could be quickly and easily implemented: Benny Gantz will be prime minister. The government will be a ‘government of experts’ who are not politicians and will concern itself only with managing the daily affairs of state,” he writes.
• But Liberman coming in may push the Joint List out. Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi tells Army Radio that he is not coordinating on the bill with Gantz: “We can’t support a government with Liberman.”
• Haaretz’s Chaim Levinson jokes on Twitter that “If Netanyahu manages to bring together [Avigdor] Liberman and Ayman Odeh, he should really get the Nobel Peace prize.”
• In Israel Hayom, Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, columnist Eithan Orkibi mocks the idea of such a government being possible: “The reason you’re not a bloc, and that you can’t make good on the 62 seats you have, has nothing to do with Netanyahu’s indictments or the ‘toxic atmosphere’ that was created because of the elections. The reason you can’t work in harmony and replace Netanyahu naturally, with an alternate majority government, is that your project is based on mass defection and severe ideological polarization – and it’s falling apart at the moment of truth like a cheap dress.”