[ad_1]
This coming weekend was supposed to be a public holiday for the Israelis. Gathered for a family dinner to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the jewish new year. Instead of friday Israel will become the first country in the world to impose a second total closure to try to stop the epidemic: cases exceeded 4000 for two days in a row, the dead are more than 500, more than half as of August.
The government decided total block for two weeks, coincides with the most important holidays of the Jewish calendar, until Yom Kippur.
Schools and all commercial activities must close (except supermarkets and pharmacies), restaurants can remain open to take away, movements are limited to 500 meters from the house.
After this first phase, two more are planned, with graduated limitations depending on the trend of infections.
For weeks, the ministers debated whether to approve the traffic light plan defined by Ronni Gamzu. The doctor in charge of coordinating anti-Covid 19 operations proposed to close only the red cities (the others identified as yellow and green) where the spread of the virus is now out of control. The problem is that these 30 areas are majority ultra-Orthodox or Arab. Those who don’t care about the state and those who the state doesn’t care about, someone commented. The ultra-Orthodox parties are part of the coalition and have threatened the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu blow up the government if it imposed a selective shutdown on the community. Rabbis have rebelled since the early days of the epidemic against any rule that limited study in religious schools or gatherings of the faithful. The ultra-Orthodox leaders are not happy even with the total closure that also affects the synagogues.
The date chosen (next Friday) for the start of the block was also criticized: allows Netanyahu to fly to Washington for the signing of the agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The opposition attacks the prime minister: she can leave while the rest of the country remains stranded on the ground (in addition, for more than six months, Israel has never reopened its borders to tourist travel).
Managing the health crisis now considered a failure: in May the government seemed to have the situation under control, new cases fell to zero.
The reopening – experts say – was rushed and messy. The prime minister, who accuses the opposition, was more concerned about his corruption trial and handled the emergency with permanent electoral campaign movements (the country went to the polls three times a year).
This piece originally appeared in the Dispacci dal Levante newsletter. Find today’s number here. Sign up for free and you can do it here
September 11, 2020 (change September 11, 2020 | 10:18)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
[ad_2]
