It has been noted that there has been a considerable amount of resistance from American Jewish communities as well as among people in Israel to wearing facemasks and taking care not to spread COVID-19. However, the Jerusalem Post reports that, as all actions inevitably have consequences, the number of COVID-19 cases has exploded in Israel.
The number of coronavirus cases in Israel is exponentially rising as the government pushes to keep schools open.
The Health Ministry reported 118 people tested positive for coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of patients since the start of the pandemic to 17,495. At last count, there were 2,191 active cases, an increase of 88 cases from the day before, and 291 people had died.
Most of the newly infected people likely are schoolchildren and their parents. The number of serious and intubated patients is still on the decline. Thursday night, there were 30 people in serious condition, including 23 on ventilators.
For perspective, between Sunday and Thursday last week (May 24-28), the average number of new cases daily was 29. This week, between Sunday and Thursday, the average number of new cases was 80.
In one day, 6,865 students and teachers entered isolation, according to the Education Ministry, bringing the total number to 13,691. By Friday morning, the ministry was reporting 13,702.
Moreover, some 304 students and teachers have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, an increase of 60 since Wednesday.
The cases are spread across the country, with the greatest number still in Jerusalem (53 in the last three days), according to the Health Ministry. Other places with high infection rates include Tel Aviv (25 in the last three days), Beersheba (17), Bnei Brak (15) and Ashdod (14).
Some 92 schools and preschools are closed, more than double the day before. Among them are schools in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Givatayim, Jaffa, Petah Tivka, Sderot and Tel Aviv. They include elementary schools, high schools and religious and secular institutions.
The spike in infections has led to an increase in the number of people asking to be tested, which has put a strain on the health funds, whose labs handle the screenings.Thursday afternoon, Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem announced it has received appeals from the health funds for help. Since the outbreak at Gymnasia Rehavia over Shavuot, Jerusalem’s labs have been performing hundreds of tests per day, in addition to the hundreds done by Magen David Adom, Hadassah said.
In a letter to the Health Ministry, Kupat Holim Meuhedet said if the ministry did not stop flooding its labs with tests, there would be criticism as there was in the first wave of severe problems in the laboratories, N12 reported.
“Please inform the Health Ministry’s management that the labs are in a state of crisis, and there is no way that we can maintain this number of tests – and this time it will not be because we are lacking reagents or kits, but because we just don’t have enough manpower,” the letter read. (source)
What else is there to say? If one does not take precautions to stop a pandemic from spreading, it will continue to spread. Viruses do not care about politics, religion, race, culture, nation, borders or anything else. They just infect, and if one wants to think that one knows better and will not care, then one will find out the hard way. It is like gravity, for one can deny its existence, but reality always comes in hard proof when one falls to one’s death after one jumps from a high place thinking that one will be able to fly.
Please be careful and maintain following guidelines for the sake of one’s and other’s safety.