The responsibility and guilt for an accelerated second wave of COVID in Israel is split between several different officials. Yom Kippur, which begins today at sundown, is an appropriate time for both personal and national introspection, not only to admit our sins and ask forgiveness, but also – and mainly – to see how we can work differently to reduce the spread of the virus and better prepare ourselves for the wide-reaching public health, economic, and social fallout of the pandemic.
Israeli politics has caused and is causing serious, possibly critical, harm to the battle against COVID. The same goes for some of the debates in the Knesset Corona Committee, where committee chairwoman MK Yifat Shasha-Biton demonstrated how a small but vocal minority of MKs from both the coalition and the opposition are not afraid to use any means necessary to torpedo attempts to check the spread of the virus.
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That same minority doesn't stop at anything when it comes to attacking and humiliating Health Ministry officials. In some cases, the Corona Committee turned out to be the enemy of the nation's battle against COVID. Clearly, it is vital to criticize the government, but that must not be done at the expense of damaging public health and life.
Coronavirus coordinator Professor Ronni Gamzu's declaration when he took over the role that he intended to stop such a widespread outbreak through localized closures only, without a nationwide lockdown, was an experiment and now we have no choice but to say that the experiment failed badly. True, the failure is also down to the government not giving his traffic light plan the necessary support, but Gamzu should have assessed the possibility of running this risky experiment on our lives prior to making his announcement
And if we're making comparisons between these issues and the terrible military failures leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, we can see signs of complacency, detachment, and poor management by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and Health Ministry Director-General Professor Hezi Levy. In the first few weeks after they were appointed, they talked as if COVID were almost behind us and did everything to project the sense that they would do everything possible to avoid another nationwide lockdown. But at the same time, the Health Ministry didn't do all it needed to improve Israel's ability to limit the scope of the epidemic here.
From the early stages of COVID in Israel, there have been sectors of society – Haredim, Arabs, and everyone else – that have been dismissive of public health regulations, thereby causing massive harm to the national efforts to stem the tide. Some of the reasons for this conduct stem from a lack of trust in the government and the Health Ministry's failures in the field of public outreach, but these are no excuse for the public's despicable conduct, which has put the lives of too many Israelis in danger.
In an epidemic as extensive as COVID, the media's influence on the public is a major element in the battle. But the Israeli media glorifies and gives a platform to the cult of "COVID denial," allowing a handful of doctors and administrators to provide misleading, false, and sometimes manipulative information about the virus, particularly information that minimizes its seriousness. Often, the media doesn't even bother to balance their appearances with other scientists or doctors who will challenge them.
This is particularly notable in some of the highest-rated, prestigious news broadcasts on the mainstream networks, and means that the anchors and editors have a major and destructive effect on Israel's preparedness to handle COVID and therefore on our very lives.
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