Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

The @NYTimes once again shows its anti-Israel bias

The New York Times has an article about how countries are restricting freedom in the times of the pandemic - and what it says about Israel is quite inaccurate.

"Israel’s prime minister has shut down courts and begun an intrusive surveillance of citizens."

In reality, Israeli courts have not been shut down. The Justice Minister together with the Courts Administration authority have postponed all non-essential hearings. The courts are still open.

The surveillance is of mobile phone metadata finding where potentially infected people have traveled. It is not much different than correlating the data from ubiquitous security cameras.

And neither measure was done at Netanyahu's order. The limits on what court cases will be heard were carried out by the Justice Minister and Courts Administration. The surveillance was ordered by the Government (i.e., by vote of all the Ministers), in consultation with Attorney General, and approved by the Supreme Court (which has not been closed either.)

What this shows is that the Leftist tropes of an autocratic Bibi have become accepted by the media.

Moreover, the article is biased by what it doesn't say. The only Arab nation it mentions is Jordan:

In Jordan, after an emergency “defense law” gave wide latitude to his office, Prime Minister Omar Razzaz said his government would “deal firmly” with anyone who spreads “rumors, fabrications and false news that sows panic.”

But autocracies like Syria and the Palestinian Authority don't need new laws to limit speech. Palestinians have arrested journalists under an "electronic crimes law" that forbids saying anything the government doesn't like. Syria has detained doctors who dare say that they have seen cases of coronavirus that the regime does not admit. Police in Lebanon have dismantled protest tents. Egypt expelled a journalist that said things not to the regime's liking. Morocco passed a new law limiting what could be said on social media, similar to Jordan's law.

But the New York Times decided that Israel was the autocracy where citizens' human rights are threatened. These Arab regimes who really are using the emergency to grab more power are barely worth mentioning.

(h/t YM and A)

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03/30 Links Pt2: Coronavirus Fight Should Bring Us All Together, Not Divide Us by Promoting Hatred; How the Coronavirus Pandemic Resurrected the Nation-State

From Ian:

Ronald Lauder: Coronavirus Fight Should Bring Us All Together, Not Divide Us by Promoting Hatred

In frightening and uncertain times - like those we are facing now with the coronavirus - some people all too often and dangerously look for and unjustly blame scapegoats. Holding Asian-Americans responsible for the coronavirus merely because it originated in China is deeply offensive and a genuine threat to them. Such scapegoating is terrifyingly familiar to my community, the Jewish people. And we are also being targeted now.

When the bubonic plague swept through 14th century Europe, Jews were held responsible. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were viciously slaughtered, and entire Jewish communities were wiped out. Needless to say, all that Jewish blood did nothing to stop the plague. Now, messages and images implying that Jews are exploiting positions of power in politics, finance and health care to spread the virus have emerged.

It is vital that the Jewish people and all Americans take an unyielding stand against any and all efforts to vilify any individual, community, people or nation for the crisis unfolding around us. This is a moment for coming together in a globally shared experience as we recognize what we have in common. We are all in this together. We will not allow COVID-19 to rob us of our civility, our pride in our nation's diversity, and our ability to build a more perfect union across the many communities that call America home.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn are fighting COVID-19 – and antisemitism

Last Saturday, Yidel Perlstein, chairman of Community Board 12 in Borough Park, Brooklyn, started to feel sick. By Tuesday, he tested positive for coronavirus.

“I’m like a little supermarket. Everything hurts, and every day I get out of bed in the morning, I go to the bathroom, and I think I’m doing better,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “Then I start getting dizzy and weak. I go back to bed, just wait for it to be calm at night and go to sleep. And this has been going on like that every single day.”

“They told me I’m better off staying home as long as I can instead of going to the hospital, which is overcrowded,” he said. “It is better to stay away for as long as possible. So far, I don’t feel any better than last week. It is probably worse.”

“My message is straightforward,” Perlstein said. “If you would have gotten [the coronavirus] and you would know how painful it is, you would have rather stayed home for six weeks than going out and getting it, even with the light case.

“People have no idea. People cannot relate to how painful it is and how you could just lay in bed like you’re almost dead for days and days – and there’s nothing to do.”

New York State has some 60,000 cases and nearly 1,000 people who have died from coronavirus, the largest number in the US by far. Most of the patients, some 33,000, live in the New York City metropolitan area. The new situation affects the sizable Jewish population there, forcing synagogues, schools and yeshivas to close.

Some “99.9%” of the synagogues are closed, as well as schools and most of the stores, Perlstein told the Post.

WATCH AND SHARE: I’m calling on my fellow Jews to adhere strictly to government & rabbinic guidelines that forbid ALL gatherings!

Don’t wait for the virus to claim the life of your own family to take it seriously!

Stay home; stay safe!

Call 311 to report illegal gatherings. pic.twitter.com/YEi9pH6J9M
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) March 29, 2020

Netanyahu limits all gatherings to 2 people, except for family members; demands ‘lockdown Seder’

Netanyahu says there are “particular groups” in the country not adhering to emergency directives — “deliberately breaching and even showing contempt” for the rules– and that he therefore ordered security forces to step up enforcement in areas with a high number of violations.

He stresses that most Israelis, including those in the ultra-Orthodox community, are acting responsibly. The “extremist groups” who are flouting the rules, he says, endanger themselves and everybody else, and are trampling on the principle of “love thy neighbor.”

“There won’t be gatherings of over two people who are not from the same nuclear family,” he announces.

Additionally, he says no kind of prayer will be allowed even in open areas — “pray only on your own” — and that religious events should be restricted as much as possible.

Even weddings must be restricted only to immediately family, he says. Funerals remain limited to 20 people, and circumcisions to 10 — all while maintaining two-meter social distancing.

Netanyahu also calls on Israelis not to visit family during the Passover holiday.

This year’s Passover Seder will be “the lockdown seder” — with only the nuclear family attending. “Don’t visit relatives on the eve of the festival either,” he stresses.

“These same restrictions apply as relevant to all faiths,” he notes.

Who cares more for Palestinians, Israel or BDS? (poster)

The pandemic gives us a chance to highlight one of the most ridiculous demands by BDS (and by many Palestinians and Arabs themselves) against "normalization" with Israel.

In order to fight the coronavirus, everyone has to work together. But working together with Israel violates one of the core BDS principles, of being against "normalization" with Israel.

By BDS' definition, normalization is "the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.”

Therefore, a meeting last week between Palestinian doctors from Jericho and Israeli experts on how to fight the coronavirus would be a violation of the BDS demands. And so is all the other cooperation between Israelis and Arabs on fighting the pandemic.

In ongoing joint efforts to slow the spread of #COVIDー19, Palestinian medical teams in the Jericho region attended a professional training session today to learn methods for examining patients, managing isolation facilities in hospitals & preventing infection of medical staff. pic.twitter.com/eCOqipUaNh
— COGAT (@cogatonline) March 22, 2020

How absurd that a movement supposedly meant to help Palestinians would prefer that they not cooperate against a worldwide threat! But there you have it - BDS doesn't care about Palestinians.

And Israel does.

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Forget gas masks and ventilators - Hamas suffering from a shortage or martyrs

The current pandemic has reduced the number of terror attacks and riots in Israel and the territories to nearly zero. In fact, today is "Land Day," a major event that is usually marked with mass anti-Israel rallies, and this year the Palestinians can do virtually nothing.

Hamas, which is built on a culture of glorifying death and "martyrs," has very little to talk about without physical attacks. So its top story on the Al Qassam Brigades website is about the "martyrdom" of someone who just died of injuries from a car accident four years ago.

Al-Qassam Brigades said in its military statement that the Mujahideen Muhammad Issa Baraka from Khan Yunis, died today, Saturday 4 Shaaban 1441 AH corresponding to 3/28/2020 AD, as a result of his injury in a traffic accident 4 years ago.

"To go to his Lord after a blessed life full of giving, jihad, sacrifice and bond in the way of Allah, we count him among the righteous martyrs who are pure and do not commend ourselves to Allah."

We ask Allah to accept him in the martyrs, and to accommodate him in his spacious gardens, and to provide his family with beautiful patience and good consolation, and we belong to God and to Him we shall return.

Pity poor Hamas who needs to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find new "martyrs" to praise.

I guess the terror group didn't want to waste their martyr photos:

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03/30 Links Pt1: 16th Israeli dies of virus, Health Ministry predicts 150 critical patients; Man stabbed in Monsey Hanukkah attack succumbs to wounds

From Ian:

Man stabbed in Monsey Hanukkah attack succumbs to wounds

A man seriously wounded in a Hanukkah attack on a Jewish gathering in Monsey, New York, has died, three months after the stabbing rampage.

Josef Neumann, 72, succumbed to wounds sustained during the December 29 machete assault, a local Jewish group said Sunday.

“We are sad to inform you that Yosef Neumann, who was stabbed during the Hanukkah attack in Monsey late Dec 2019, passed away this evening,” the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council said in a statement posted to Twitter.

Rabbi Yisroel Kahan, who is the community liaison for the Ramapo Police Department that serves Monsey and executive director of Oizrim Jewish Council, shared the news of Neumann’s passing on his Twitter account as well.

“We were hoping when he started to open his eyes,” Rabbi Yisroel Kahan told The Journal News on Sunday night. “We were hoping and praying he would then pull through. This is so very sad he was killed celebrating Hanukkah with friends just because he was a Jew.”

Neumann was the most seriously injured in the attack and doctors had said there was little chance he would ever make a full recovery. He had been in a coma since the attack, according to NBC News.

His death came despite hopes that his condition may improve after he reportedly opened his eyes at the end of February.

16th Israeli dies of virus, Health Ministry predicts 150 critical patients

Israel's coronavirus death toll climbed to 16 on Monday after a 58-year-old man with underlying medical conditions died at the Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center, south of Tel Aviv.

The news came as Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov warned that there are likely to be over 150 coronavirus patients in a serious condition in Israel by the weekend.

"I don't see a model in which we end this situation with a small number of intubated patients or deaths," Bar Siman Tov told KAN Reshet Bet.

A total of 4,347 Israelis have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus to date, including 80 people in serious condition - among them a young man in his 20s who was hospitalized at Assuta Ashdod University Hospital - and 63 patients requiring ventilation.

Despite testing close to 6,000 people on Sunday, Bar Siman Tov said the tests were only giving authorities a "very partial picture" of the real situation.

PMW: Coronavirus and PA financial priorities

The amount the PA is paying terrorists this month could buy them 387,143 Coronavirus test kits or 465 ventilators instead

For which leaders is the payment of financial rewards to terrorists more important than supporting the needy or paying teachers?

The answer is, of course, the Palestinian Authority leaders– during the Coronavirus crisis!

Anticipating a fall in income, PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh announced that the payment of the March salaries will be staggered, and every day a different group of PA employees will be paid. The order of payment is a clear indication of the PA’s priorities.

Preceded only by the medical and supporting personnel, and the PA Security Forces members, third in line to receive their share of the limited PA budget are the terrorist prisoners and the families of the dead terrorists, the so-called “Martyrs.”

“Since the wheels of production, import, and consumption have stopped, there will be a large drop of more than 50% in the PA’s revenues… The international aid will decrease because the entire world is in crisis, and therefore we will work according to an emergency austerity budget by reducing the expenses as much as possible. However, we will pay the salaries for this month [March] in full and over the course of several days in order to prevent gatherings in front of the banks, and this [will be] in the following manner:

On Sunday the salaries of the medical and supporting personnel will be paid.
On Monday to the [PA] Security Forces members.
On Tuesday to the prisoners and [the families of] the Martyrs.
On Wednesday to welfare cases and the poor.
On Thursday to the teachers.
On Friday to the rest of the [PA] public employees.
The last payment, on Saturday, will be to senior officials, to high level state employees, and to the ministers.”
[WAFA, Official PA news agency, March 29, 2020]

As Palestinian Media Watch has shown, this is not the first time the PA has clearly demonstrated its warped priorities. In 2019, when the PA decided to plunge itself into a self-made financial crisis and was forced to cut salaries to its law abiding employees, it nevertheless committed itself to paying, in full, the salaries of the terrorist prisoners and allowances of the families of the dead terrorists.

Similarly, the fact that the PA prioritizes the payment of the terror rewards over the payment of benefits to the needy Palestinians, is not a surprise. As PMW demonstrated, the PA devotes six times more of its budget to the terrorist prisoners and the families of the dead terrorists than it does to its needy.

Rabbi Pinni Dunner recounts a story from Rabbi YY Jacobson, a famous inspirational speaker who grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn:

“A few weeks ago, I led a workshop for single mothers, and at the end of the session, I took questions from the women and encouraged them to ask any question that was on their mind. One of the ladies put her hand up, and this is what she asked me… it’s a crazy story.”

“A few months ago,” she said, “it was Pesach. The thing is, my ex-husband and I went through a very difficult breakup. After years in court over our kids, we finally settled on a shared custody arrangement, which means that we alternate Jewish holidays. This past Pesach it was my turn – my children were coming to me for Seder and I was so excited. I changed over my home for Pesach and prepared everything beautifully; it was going to be just me and the kids.”

“I was so happy about them being with me, that I told everyone: my family, my friends, my neighbors. Then, one hour before yomtov, I got a phone call from my ex – for some reason, the kids were not going to be coming. I almost fainted from shock and heartache. I was also so ashamed. I guess I could have called my parents, or I could have called my neighbors – and gone to them for the Seder. But how could I actually do that? I had told everyone my kids were coming! Truth is, I did not have the energy to even be with anyone. I felt completely and totally numb – dry and lifeless.”

“So I did the Seder by myself. On my own. It was the worst and most bitter Seder I have ever had. I just sat there crying the whole way through. Weeping. It wasn’t Pesach. It was Tisha B’Av. I did not have to eat Maror. I—my entire life!—was Maror. Yes, I went through the Haggadah and ate the Matzah; but the entire Seder took me 25 minutes.”

“Rabbi Jacobson, did I do the right thing? Did I fulfil my Seder obligation? Was it even called a Seder? Because it did not feel like a proper Pesach.”

Rabbi Jacobson told me – and believe me, as a public speaker, I know exactly what he means – sometimes your most inspirational moments in a speech are not prepared. They are a gift from God. You can prepare for hours. And then inspiration drops into your lap. Right then and there, Rabbi YY Jacobson had such a moment.

“Lady,” he said, “in 1988 the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s wife died, and he was left on his own, as they sadly had no children. She passed away in February, and two months later was Pesach. Every year the Rebbe and his Rebbetzen had Seder together, but this year he was on his own, totally by himself. Who would the Rebbe conduct the Passover Seder with?”

“I recall that a young boy, Ari Halberstam – who was later tragically gunned down on Brooklyn Bridge, in 1994 – approached the Rebbe after Maariv on the first night of Pesach and, on behalf of his mother, invited the Rebbe to his home for Seder. Ari’s family lived at 706 Eastern Parkway, just one block away from ‘770’. The Rebbe smiled at Ari, and shook his head. He thanked him profusely, but told Ari he would be having the Seder in his private office in ‘770’.”

“I was a yeshiva student at the time,” continued Rabbi Jacobson, “so I am a first-hand witness to this story. In fact, the Rebbe’s longstanding assistant Rabbi Leibel Groner offered to stay with the Rebbe, but the Rebbe sent him home to have Seder with his wife and children.”

“And so, the great Lubavitcher Rebbe – the man who inspired countless people around the world for their Seders, who personally undertook to provide a meaningful Pesach Seder for Israeli Army personnel who were on duty on the first night of Pesach via his shluchim in Eretz Yisrael – had the Seder on his own. Not one other person was present. As the Talmud says: if you are on your own, you ask yourself the ‘Ma Nishtana’ questions, and then you answer them to yourself.”

“A few of us yeshiva boys did not go home that night; we waited outside in the street – and after a couple of hours, the Rebbe opened the door to welcome Eliyahu Hanavi and recite Shefoch Chamatcha. He walked outside holding a candle and his Haggadah, said the prayer, gave us a wave, and then went back inside to finish the Seder — by himself.”

“My dear lady,” said Rabbi Jacobson, “if it was good enough for the Lubavitcher Rebbe to have the Seder on his own, trust me, your Seder was perfect!”

“He could have had his Seder with 100 people, 1000 people, or 10,000 people. He personally arranged for all the army Seders in Israel to be sponsored. He was responsible for hundreds of thousands of people celebrating Pesach on Seder night, from Kathmandu to Alaska, from San Francisco to New Zealand. But at the end of the day, he went and did the Seder on his own. He didn’t need anyone else to be close to God. He didn’t need adulation. He didn’t need validation. He sat alone and relived the Exodus from Egypt.”

“I was only 15 at the time,” concluded Rabbi Jacobson, “but despite my youth, I felt sad that the Rebbe had nobody to be with for the Seder. Why did he not invite even one person to be with him? But today, after hearing your story, I may have discovered the answer—and it is just a personal feeling. As a true Jewish leader, the Rebbe wished to empower all those souls who would ever need to do their Seder alone. He wanted them to know that their solitary Passover Seder was powerful, meaningful, and real. Jewish history and the Divine presence would dwell at their Seder just as it does at a Seder that has many people there.”

(h/t David S)

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Bernie Sanders pushes the lie that Israel is not allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza

Bernie Sanders, who has surrounded himself with anti-Israel aides, naturally doesn't know anything about Israel beyond what his aides tell him.

Which is why he parroted the talking points of rabid Israel-haters in a tweet on Sunday:

Palestinians in Gaza already faced hardship under a blockade. Now they're dealing with the coronavirus.

My Senate colleagues and I call on Trump to send U.S. medical relief. And the Israeli government must also lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid. https://t.co/WeLRY72KLq
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 29, 2020

Tellingly, he links to a week-old article from the extremist anti-Israel Gisha organization.

But even the UN has admitted that Israel is not impeding any aid to the territories and praised Israel for fully cooperating with the Palestinian Authority, international NGOs and even Hamas.

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, has praised the coordination between the Israeli and Palestine authorities in reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement released on Friday, the coordination and cooperation established between Israel and Palestine, with regard to tackling COVID-19, was described as “excellent”.

The Israeli and Palestinian authorities are continuing to coordinate their responses closely and constructively, the statement said, which is a major factor in the level of disease containment achieved so far.

Since the beginning of the crisis, Israel has allowed the entry of critical supplies and equipment into Gaza: examples of critical supplies include swabs for collection of samples and other laboratory supplies required for COVID-19 testing, and Personal Protective Equipment to protect health workers.

The statement also noted Israel’s cooperation in allowing health workers and other personnel involved in the COVID-19 response to move in and out of the West Bank and Gaza.

It is not only Mladenov. The UN has noted this across the board:

When even the UN says that Israel is doing everything one can expect to help Palestinians, you know that the haters are lying through their teeth.

And Bernie Sanders prefers the lies of the haters to the facts that even the UN admits.

Thank Allah he will not be the Democratic candidate.

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Palestinian officials may be hushing up coronavirus infections, just like Syria, Turkey, Russia, China...

Two news stories in Palestinian media seem s little too coincidental.

On Friday morning, Palestinian police arrested a journalist who broadcast live from Hebron. I do not know what he said, but the police officials said that he "talked about the coronavirus in a manner that spread terror and fear among citizens in Hebron."

The Palestinian electronic crime unit has been following social and traditional media to find "violations and false news that spread fear and confusion among citizens."

It sounds like this journalist warned about an outbreak of the virus in Hebron, and the police arrested him, warning the population that only official news may be published or posted.

This law sounds strikingly like the one that Syria has to block all news that the government doesn't approve of and to arrest anyone - even doctors - who speak publicly about Covid-19 cases that are not officially acknowledged.

Is that the case here? Are there people with the virus in Hebron?

Tweets indicated that Hebron went under quarantine last Thursday. Photos of deserted streets were posted o Friday. But the official media said that the quarantine started Sunday night.

Why did Hebron suddenly decide to quarantine the entire city?

The governor of Hebron, Jabreen Al-Bakri, issued a decision Sunday night to completely close the city of Hebron until further notice.

A statement issued byAl-Bakri said, "It is based on the developments of the current health situation and in order to fight this pandemic and limit the spread of the coronavirus, it was decided to take precautionary and preventive measures in the city of Hebron from Monday, March 30, until further notice.

All the entrances to the city of Hebron are completely closed and entry and exit is prohibited.

Isn't that a coincidence that the same city that had news that was considered too likely to panic citizens, which was hushed up, is two days later being completely quarantined?

Is there a major outbreak in Hebron that is being covered up?

If the PA is hiding coronavirus cases, it is endangering everyone in the region. It would be an unforgivable crime. The censorship itself is bad enough, but this could be China-level censorship - we don't know.

PA president Mahmoud Abbas actually praised China for its coronavirus response last week. It looks like he is taking its lessons very seriously.

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Newest blood libel: Despicable Palestinian PM accuses IDF of purposefully spreading #Covid19

We are back to the Dark Ages.

They used to accuse Jews of spreading the plague by poisoning the wells. Now they are saying that Jews are spreading the plague more directly.

From YNet:

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Sunday accused IDF soldiers of deliberately spreading the novel coronavirus among the West Bank's Palestinian population.

In the latest iteration of an ongoing and long-standing blood libel, Shtayyeh claimed, "We were exposed to testimonies that some of the (Israeli) soldiers are trying to spread the virus on car handles."

The firebrand politician cited racism as the main motive behind the soldiers' actions.

"This is racism and hatred of people who long for the death of the other. We will record this in the list of crimes [against Israel], " Shtayyeh said.

This is a despicable antisemitic statement. Which means that the usual people on the Left who hate Israel but pretend to be against antisemitism will remain silent - or will say that he is telling the truth.

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Posters to tweet/FB to counter the Gaza libels

I've been making posters to counter the lies from the hate-Israel crowd, but they would be far more effective if they are used as replies to the hashtags and libels that claim that Israel limits medicine and humanitarian aid to gaza.

So, use these liberally.

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Palestinians have SIX TIMES the number of ventilators per sick person compared to Israel

A tweet from Sari Bashi of Gisha, formerly of Human Rights Watch, retweeted by Ken Roth, shows yet again the anti-Israel bias of the organization.

What needs to be compared isn't the total population of Israelis and Palestinians, but the number of people stricken with coronavirus. After all, healthy people clearly don't need ventilators.

So let's look at the numbers again, assuming her ventilator numbers are correct:

Number of Israelis diagnosed with Covid-19 (not yet recovered) as of this writing: 4115

Number of Palestinians diagnosed with Covid-19 (not yet recovered) as of now: 91

Number of ventilators per patient in Israel: 0.53

Number of ventilators per patient in the Palestinian territories: 3.24

Which means that Palestinians have over six times the number of respirators per patient that Israel has.

If you look at the numbers of those in serious condition, things are even more skewed towards the Palestinians. There are 74 Israeli patients in serious condition - and zero Palestinians. I don't know how many, if any, people in non-serious condition need a respirator.

This doesn't mean that more respirators won't be needed for both. They are needed for the future, not the present. The numbers are increasing at a dizzying rate. But the implication that Israel is withholding ventilators that are desperately needed is completely false.

The anti-Israel rhetoric from so-called human rights groups is truly sick.

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03/29 Links: Third Israeli dies Sunday - 15 coronavirus victims; Manhattan D.A. Prosecuted Just 21 Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes in Past Decade

From Ian:

Third Israeli dies Sunday - 15 coronavirus victims

Three Israelis died of cornoavirus on Sunday, bringing the total number of victims to 15.

The most recent victim is an 84-year-old woman who was being treated at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The two previous victims were in their 90s.

The 14th victim is a 90-year-old woman who had been hospitalized at Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak. The 13th is a 92-year-old man who was admitted last week in serious condition to Shaare Zedek. Both had pre-existing conditions.

As of Sunday morning, 3,865 Israelis have coronavirus, coronavirus, according to the Health Ministry - 66 people are in serious condition, among them a young man in his 20s who is hospitalized at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital.

The numbers represent an increase of 246 more people since press time on Saturday night.

Coronavirus explained: 22 questions with epidemiologist guiding Israeli response

Professor Yehuda Carmeli is head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and a professor at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. He is one of the medical professionals leading the Israeli Health Ministry’s response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The Times of Israel spoke to him at 7:30 Thursday morning, the only slot available in his busy day. We asked him a host of key questions to try to understand more about the coronavirus. Among them: How is it transmitted, is it or is not airborne, and why it is so contagious? How many people worldwide will ultimately be infected, with what consequent rate of fatalities? Why are the elderly at greater risk, and why are other age groups so much less so? Why are Israel and other countries responding in the ways that they are, and whose approaches are more and less effective? And what should the public expect in terms of the virus’ impact — not only on our health, but the disruption to our lives — and for how long?

1. Why were there “only” 3,000 coronavirus deaths in China, while in Italy, a much smaller country, we are seeing hundreds of people dying a day?
Actually not all of China was affected. In most of China there was a relatively small number of cases. There is a specific county, Hubei, that was affected and within it, the city of Wuhan. Wuhan has a population of 11 million. Also, in Italy, it was mostly the region of Lombardy, which has a population of [10 million]. So approximately the same size of population has been affected in both cases.

2. How many people will become infected worldwide if this pandemic is not checked?
There are various mathematical models that try to estimate the number of cases expected in different places. There is a saying about mathematical models that all of them are wrong but some are useful. We truly don’t know which of them is correct.

All models I have seen predict that by the end of this outbreak, which could be in several months or could be in a year or two, about 60-70 percent of the population will be infected at some point. Not all people who are infected become sick. Some don’t even notice that they have it, or have very minor symptoms.

But in the end you can take the world’s population and calculate 60 or 70 percent, and those are the numbers that will be affected by this pandemic.

Stephen L. Miller:Why was early coronavirus coverage so lazy? The media’s insatiable thirst for political correctness

The night that President Trump issued his order, Vox tweeted, ‘Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No.’ That tweet was then deleted with a correction earlier this week. Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post wrote on January 31, ‘Get a grippe [sic], America. The flu is a much bigger threat than Coronavirus, for now.’ The next day, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled, ‘Past epidemics prove fighting coronavirus with travel bans is a mistake.’ In what appeared to be a full court press against the president’s order, the paper published another piece on January 31, ‘How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is.’ On February 3, they hit us with another op-ed headlined, ‘Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus’, arguing it would lead to more stigmatization of marginalized populations.

On January 29, in concert with the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News tweeted, ‘Don’t worry about the coronavirus. Worry about the flu.’ Just a few days before President Trump’s Oval Office address to the nation, CNN’s Anderson Cooper said on air that ‘if you’re freaked out about the Coronavirus you should be more concerned about the flu.’ And then shortly after Trump’s address, CNN’s Brian Stelter commented that ‘Sean Hannity and Fox were going to celebrate the travel ban while evading the scourge of community spread within the US.’ CNN then published online in late February that racist attacks against Asians (only of which a handful in the United States have been authenticated and documented) spread faster than the coronavirus.

This was all, of course, reflexive coverage to a president they see as an emotional and oppressive opponent. Trump has made a hobby of hitting the media over the head with whatever bat they hand to him, and it’s one of the reasons it’s hard to listen to any of their sky-is-falling coverage now. Donald Trump is going to spin his way through this crisis, just like any communications-minded president would do, and the media’s attempts to play catch-up will leave them with a public that no longer trusts them.