Israel "Locked" in Chaos
Nationwide lockdowns have been at the center of several heated debates among Israeli officials. With the number of daily cases of COVID-19 rising, on top of a collapsing healthcare system failing to meet the needs of the newly sick and putting too much pressure on the nursing staff of the hospitals, something must be done to control the virus. However, every step towards a solution is met with opposition, highlighting the chaos Israel now finds itself in as they try to weigh multiple factors at once as the physical and fiscal lives of thousands of Israelis are at stake.
The chaos surrounding lockdown positions in the Israeli government has resulted in two extremes voicing their concerns in the Israeli government. Last week, Israeli politicians and medical leaders like the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians greatly criticized plans for restrictions, calling those plans to place restrictions on the public “devoid of epidemiological logic.” In a tweet on Friday, chairman of the Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, stated that the people of Israel were fed up with the decisions about government restrictions that are severely and negatively impacting the Israeli economy, “made in the middle of the night without any data”. On the other side of the debate stand medical professionals and members of the health ministry who see a total lockdown as unavoidable. In a press conference at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said “we are doing everything we can” to avoid a lockdown but warned it was a strong consideration. He continued to explain that “If there’s a medical miracle” and infection rates reduced, “maybe we won’t get to a lockdown.” Additionally, Ben Gurion University’s Dov Schwartz, who serves on an interdisciplinary team studying the pandemic at Ben Gurion, claimed that nightly and weekend lockdowns were necessary, along with a requirement that all Israelis over the age of 67 remain in their homes for the next 30 days, to prevent “a total breakdown” of the healthcare system in just three week’s time.
These comments began on July 17th when weekend lockdown restrictions were suggested, including the closing of public beaches, Stores, malls, retail markets, hairdressers, beauty salons, libraries, zoos, museums, pools and other tourist attractions, gyms and studios used for sports or dance activities, indoor and outdoor seating for restaurants and cafeterias, and the reduction of public gathering and government workers. However, as the proposal was made on Friday, there simply wasn’t enough time to get the necessary legislation to put everything into effect, and almost all of these considerations have been hotly debated over the weekend and continue today, with some being completely discarded. Debates are set to continue this week as cases of COVID-19 continue to devastate the country, and protests over the lack of economic relief spark unrest among Israelis.