Health minister: Hard to see scenario that avoids nationwide lockdown
As ministers prepare to discuss possible closure, ministry chief says hospitals congested; Liberman, 2 Yisrael Beytenu MKs quarantined after settler leader tests positive
Hours before ministers were set to convene for discussions on sweeping virus regulations to curb ever-rising infection rates, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Thursday that he found it hard to envision a scenario that wouldn’t require a national closure.
“It’s hard to see what steps we could take to avoid a general lockdown,” Edelstein told Army Radio, after his ministry reported nearly 4,000 new coronavirus cases over the previous day. “[Full] closure is one of the options. The real dilemma is whether we allow economic activity, or reach a state where everything is closed. There is no argument that leisure and entertainment should be closed.”
“We have been very liberal in managing this crisis, and unfortunately the results are accordingly high,” Edelstein said. “Every time we try to manage the restrictions differently, I immediately know that the next day there will be a demonstration outside my home, because a sector that did not receive relief will be angry.”
According to Channel 13 news, the Health Ministry will ask ministers on Thursday to vote on a closure for the coming holiday period, which starts with Rosh Hashanah on September 18 and ends with the conclusion of Sukkot on October 10.
The report said the proposal will see movement restricted to no more than 500 meters from home, across the whole country, during that period. Additionally, the plan calls for festive meals to be restricted to nuclear families only. However, there could be looser rules governing group prayer.
Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy told Army Radio that hospitals were starting to feel the strain of the surge in cases and that it was leading to problems with the provision of care.
“We are beginning to see congestion in the hospitals and staff are talking about very great difficulty in providing the best care,” Levy said, adding that the restrictions currently in place appeared not to be effective enough. “We will have to take on more severe restrictions, which will affect our way of life.”
A source present at a Wednesday meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top health officials told the Walla news site that Edelstein and Levy both urged the prime minister to impose significant restrictions as swiftly as possible, citing the strain on the healthcare system from the spiraling number of virus cases.
The Health Ministry said on Thursday morning that 3,951 cases were diagnosed on Wednesday, the highest daily rate since the start of the pandemic, taking the number of active cases in the country to 32,217.
One person had died since Wednesday evening, taking the death toll to 1,055.
The number of patients in serious condition was at 487, with 137 of them on ventilators. There are additionally 161 patients in moderate condition.
The ministry said there were 44,969 tests carried out on Wednesday with a positive rate of 9%, a figure that has remained consistently high over the past few days.
Meanwhile settler leader Samaria Regional Council chief Yossi Dagan said on Thursday that he had tested positive for coronavirus, sending Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman and party MKs Oded Forer and Evgeny Sova into isolation as a result of meeting with him.
Earlier this week, Liberman came under fire after he urged Israelis not to comply with the government’s “illegal” virus regulations.
ובכן, בעקבות המפגש בתחילת השבוע ליברמן נכנס לבידוד https://t.co/9xbly0f8mk pic.twitter.com/w7klejeqQG
— שחר גליק Shahar Glick (@glick_sh) September 10, 2020
Wednesday night saw the second overnight curfew in 40 towns and neighborhoods across the country, ordered by the government in an effort to slow the virus spread in areas with high infection rates. Those measures largely went unenforced Tuesday and have been criticized by many officials as ineffective.
The nightly curfew is imposed between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. the next day, in towns and neighborhoods with high infections rates.
Many of the communities under curfew are Arab, and a report Thursday by the Ynet website said that mass events haven’t stopped due the measures — they have simply been pushed ahead to 4 or 5 p.m., ending at 7.
Many others, the report said, are holding weddings and other events at home, with numerous guests and without social distancing.
Some event hall owners are calling on the government to reopen the halls under strict gathering and distancing rules, claiming that is the only way to actually control the situation and cut infections.
Small businesses and self-employed workers on Wednesday threatened “anarchy,” saying that if the government decides to impose a complete lockdown on the economy, as expected in the coming weeks, they will keep their businesses open unless they are promised financial compensation in advance.
The Times of Israel Community.