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| The COVID Tsunami (Mishpacha) |
The first article was clearly not supportive of those protests. They thoroughly condemned them. As did the city fathers interviewed in that article. But not without the apologetics that so often accompany these kinds of condemnations. There is always the obligatory ‘It wasn’t us’ comment. ‘It is a bunch of hooligans and infiltrators that responsible for the extreme violence.’ ‘Not us.’
OK. I believe them up to a point. But to be so completely oblivious to their own part in this is to perpetuate the problem. When the leadership and their politicians constantly vilify the police and the government they serve, is it any wonder that violence will break out?
That the police were there to enforce the lockdown should have been anticipated because of the recent spike in the virus in their city. Instead of the selective condemnation peppered with apologetics now being heard, the leadership should have seen to it that that whatever rules were in place were being followed to the fullest extent possible. With serious municipal consequences for those not in full compliance. (Like Vizhnitz for example).
The police know how they are perceived by this community. But they were tasked with enforcing the lockdown. We are all now witness to the results. Just as we have been so many other times when there were clashes between Charedi miscreants and the police.
That the Charedi areas have been hardest hit by this new wave should have pre-empted these protests. As he very next article in Mishpachademonstrates. The descriptions in this article are familiar to me. I have seen and continue to see the scenes described almost every day on the national TV news broadcasts. Only this time it is about Charedim.
The following are some rather lengthy excerpts from the second Mishpachaarticle. I don’t usually do this. But it is important to once and for all disabuse the notion among so many of our people (especially those in the Charedi world) that there are other issues of equal concern that might override the kind of severe lockdowns being protested in places like Bnei Brak. Which has the effect of justifying those protests somewhat. As important as those issues are (and I don't deny any of them) NOTHING can override the damage done by a disease gone haywire. If the following doesn’t convince you of this, then in my view you have lost all sense of reality. Read it and weep:
Tragic scenes of young and old suffering, hospitals swamped and medical staff strained to the breaking point by a coronavirus mutation that came from nowhere.
This could be Italy, New York, or London in March 2020, as the COVID tsunami broke across the developed world. But those scenes are actually the reality now in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, as Israel grapples with its strongest wave yet of the disease...
Last month, 1,300 people died of the virus We’re at the height of the third wave of COVID-19, which is dwarfing the first two waves,” says Dr. Relli Alon, deputy director of nursing care at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center. “There are more cases, more serious cases, more young cases, and more cases among young pregnant women, who can reach critical condition. They have to be separated from their husbands, their children, and even the baby they give birth to, and it’s painful to watch. And a clear majority of those hospitalized in the corona ward are chareidi.”
And in a country used to conflict, the mounting pressure on medical facilities has some doctors warning of even worse to come...
(Dr. Relli Alon of Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital describes her experiences in the COVID ward.
It was a tough shift, physically and emotionally. We watched as they performed resuscitations on two patients, each lasting 40 minutes. Neither patient made it.
This morning we opened an eighth corona ward, adding to the previous seven, two emergency wards, and another intermediate care ward. This morning we had 130 corona patients in our wards, of whom 24 are on ventilators and 40 are in critical condition. It’s far more than we can handle.
“My teams are totally worn out.
“At this moment, the two branches of Hadassah — Har Hatzofim and Ein Kerem — have about 100 nurses in quarantine, about half of them testing positive after being infected during their work. And each of those nurses needs to be replaced immediately...
Professor Eliyahu Sorkin, head of the corona ward and ICU in Bnei Brak’s Mayanei Hayeshuah Medical Center, describes a very similar situation. The overcrowding in the corona wards, he says, affects the medical staff and patients alike.
“Severe emotional and psychological stress is one of the factors that can cause a case to deteriorate. We see how much patients’ mental state affects the course of the disease,” says Sorkin. “We’ve treated over 1,300 patients. Our medical teams work 24/7. Serious cases in the young, including among pregnant women, can develop into multiple organ failure within minutes.” Professor Sorkin seeks to correct the impression formed in the public mind during previous waves that COVID victims are primarily elderly.
“In the corona ICU we’re at 150% capacity, and the average age is about 38,” he emphasizes. “We’re talking about 20-year-old women, 35- to 40-year-old men, tops. There are pregnant women on whom we have to operate to save their lives. We have four pregnant women in the corona ICU now. I’m seeing a rise in serious cases among pregnant women — I can’t remember anything like it. ”