"The enforcement in the Haredi sector is influenced by political considerations," Ronnie Numa, the head of the Health Ministry's ultra-Orthodox coronavirus department, said on Sunday.
He warned of "a change in trends in the sector, which for weeks has been bright green and is turning red." Having spoken with community members and analyzed the data, Numa described said there was a "sense of complacency" among the sector. "We haven't been able to exhaust the closure to bend the morbidity, and we, therefore, need to think of a new strategy," he said.
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Numa was also critical of the politicization of the lockdown among Haredi wheeler-dealers, in the Knesset and elsewhere, in particular given the upcoming election.
"Certainly, the political clout of the Haredim influences the fact that there is no enforcement in the Haredi education system and [no enforcement of] the regulations in Haredi society. We aren't living on the moon. We need to keep in mind that we are also in the middle of an election campaign. Anyone who says otherwise isn't speaking the truth," Numa said.
According to Numa, closing the education system to bring down morbidity would be a justifiable move.
"From a professional perspective, the education system contributed unequivocally to the increase in morbidity, including among the Haredi public," he said.
Despite the skyrocketing morbidity rate in the Arab sector, the head of the ministry's coronavirus response in the community, Ayman Saif revealed that Arabs constitute "only a small percentage" of all Israelis who have been inoculated thus far.
Israeli Arab representatives have called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow Arabs aged 16 and over to receive the vaccine.
In a joint letter, the head of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel Haim Bibas and senior members of the National Committee of the Heads of Arab Local Authorities noted the sector's low vaccination rate was due to concerns among older community members they would be putting themselves at risk by "coming to big vaccination centers after having protected themselves through social distancing for nearly an entire year."
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