Israel is in the midst of a public health emergency and COVID is pummeling us, with the number of confirmed new cases a day nearing 10,000, with a corresponding rise in the number of seriously ill patients, patients on ventilators, and deaths.
And even though Israel is fighting a public health war, we appear to be a country devoted to evading the news we don't want to hear – that it is vitally important we stay under lockdown for a considerable while longer, and that severe restrictions will need to remain in place until long after the High Holidays are over.
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Without a lockdown and severe, long-term restrictions, we could face a tragedy like the ones that unfolded in New York, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Brazil during the first wave. Even so, nearly 1,600 people in Israel have died of COVID already, and in stark contrast to what some senior doctors and members of the cult of COVID denial claim, the vast majority died as a direct result of the virus. Many could have lived many years longer, even with preexisting conditions.
Doctors who are treating COVID patients back this up, as does a survey by Clalit Health Services that Professor Ran Balicer reported on Wednesday.
Hospitalized COVID patients in Israel are also in a very bad situation, even though some Health Ministry officials and senior hospital administrators are busy sweeping that under the rug in media interviews. The burden on COVID units is immense, and in some is described as "catastrophic and an immediate danger to people's lives." Even if there more hospital beds and ventilators available, there is a serious shortage of medical staff to treat the patients in serious condition.
Patients in serious condition require such complex care that doctors have no doubt that what is being provided is far from the level that could be given if hospitals weren't so overwhelmed. The current situation is making seriously ill patients die faster.
And not only are patients dying sooner than they otherwise would have, but their families are not allowed to be with them in their final hours, and surviving relatives say there are delays in notification.
In the face of all this, the inefficacy of the top echelon at the Health Ministry is particularly obvious. The ministry fails repeatedly to get its message across, and some senior officials are expressing concern that we could see a repeat of an over-hasty end to the lockdown that would lead to yet another round of catastrophe.
Even remarks by coronavirus coordinator Professor Ronni Gamzu don't reflect the level of the crisis – of health and morality – that is engulfing Israel. Gamzu, in his first press briefing after he was appointed, chose to focus on new cases rather than deaths – those same deaths that such complicated and extensive steps have been taken to prevent.
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