Fewer complaints, but virus enforcement kinks remain, ombudsman finds

A state comptroller report finds that Israelis made fewer official complaints about state bodies or services during the third and fourth waves of the coronavirus pandemic than during the first two waves, but also highlights a number of troubling incidents regarding enforcement of health rules.

According to the report, 1,687 complaints related to the pandemic were filed between December 1, 2020, and October 15 of this year, down from 2,637 in a previous report that dealt with the start of the pandemic until the end of November 2020.

Among the complaints detailed in the report is a case where the son of a woman who died after getting COVID-19 got calls from the police weekly asking if she was staying in quarantine. According to the Health Ministry, the woman did not die from the virus, and so her name was never taken off the rolls of people requiring isolation. Her son maintains that she was one of the over 8,000 coronavirus victims nationwide.

Another case involves a teenage boy who recovered from COVID and finished isolation, but got an NIS 5,000 ($1,600) fine for not being in quarantine. The ticket was supposed to be sent to his home, but never was, and by the time his parents found out about it and tried to fight it, they were told the deadline for appeals had passed.