Benjamin, are you Haredi, or were you once?

Hello Roni A., back in the day I fell into Haredi-ism for about 20 years… blessed be He who has rid us of it.

And to Benjamin he said —

A. Can one rely on the reasoning and good sense of someone who stumbled into Haredi-ism and was devoted to it for twenty years? See Maimonides on penitents, whose way is to be lowly and humble… 🙂

B. Is it permissible to rely in medical matters on Prof. Yoram Lass and Prof. Udi Qimron and others, whose opinion is that they are exaggerating somewhat in shutting down life because of the coronavirus, since the rates of severe illness and death among carriers are rather low? And do not exceed the flu?

With blessings,
Shimshon Leitz, fully Religious Zionist, who has never in his life stumbled into Haredi-ism 🙂

As for what was said above, mentioning the name of the fool Lass is practically a danger to the public. The fact that a babbler who has no idea what he’s talking about holds the title of professor does not give any stamp of approval to the nonsense he says. And the problem is that it gives legitimacy to all kinds of smart-alecks to belittle the situation. Already now department heads and hospital directors are saying that the system is on the verge of collapse and people are dying from banal causes (like infection or inflammation) because of the overload. And that’s with all the measures and preparations. So please do not spread these foolish statements in public.

With God’s help, 28 Elul 5780

To Rabbi Michael Abraham — greetings,

Not only Prof. Yoram Lass. Prof. Udi Qimron, Prof. Motti Gerlitz, and Prof. Ariel Munitz as well — all four from the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University — think the panic and the demand for a lockdown are exaggerated; see for example their article, “The Apocalyptic Forecasts Simply Are Not Coming True” (Haaretz website, 9/10/20).

Some of the data is being increased and inflated, in order to intensify the panic and spur severe lockdown measures. For example: no one bothered responding to Prof. Lass’s claim that coronavirus tests do not distinguish between a live virus and a dead virus; the rise in the number of the “infected” stems from a rise in the number of those “tested”; people who died from other diseases are also recorded as coronavirus deaths because they were also “positive” for coronavirus; they inflated the number of “red” cities by including yeshiva students registered in a city but not actually present there; the burden on the hospitals is in Jerusalem and the north, and apparently stems from the rise in the number of patients from the Arab sector arriving for treatment.

No less serious is the fact that the Ministry of Health is broadcasting a “double message.” They demand strict restrictions on synagogues, are much less strict about restaurants and gyms, and completely loosen the reins regarding demonstrations by leftists and anarchists. In this situation the impression arises that “it’s all politics,” and in the end both these and those whistle in contempt.

In my humble opinion, they should have issued a clear general instruction: require masks in public places, allow gatherings only with a distance of 2 meters from one person to another, and in every space there should be a “coronavirus trustee” who would exercise binding discretion according to the situation.

They also should have transferred the handling to the Home Front Command, in cooperation with the local authorities and their security officers. As Maj. Gen. (res.) Matan Vilnai testified, the Home Front Command has detailed and practiced plans, which every local security officer knows and is trained to operate. Instead of giving the job to those who are trained in it and know local conditions very well, they are complicating the situation through a central system that is not prepared for rapid response.

With the blessing of bodily health and great illumination,
S.Tz.

Dear S.Tz., who will be the “coronavirus trustee” in the Haredi sphere? Will the Haredim agree to a non-Jewish, secular, or Religious Zionist trustee (heaven forfend)? After all, it’s clear that no Haredi can be found who would exercise discretion… actually, maybe Haim K. would fit the role, since all the Haredim admit that he is the only one from their tribe who is capable of exercising discretion?

It’s worth reading and hearing a bit about the learned determinations and forecasts of the idiot Lass, to understand the weight of his opinions and how they should be treated.
You can, for example, hear a bit from Guy Zohar, “The Other Side.” A few concise minutes:
https://www.facebook.com/100Tzad/videos/%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%A1/1535184796688979/
Highly recommended listening. Concise and impressive.

Here is an endless reservoir of Haredi coronavirus trustees:
https://news.walla.co.il/item/3387330

Here you have a few more coronavirus trustees:
https://news.walla.co.il/item/3386100

And here’s another genius, a potential coronavirus trustee:
https://rotter.net/forum/scoops1/654975.shtml

https://a7.org/pictures/951/951596.jpg

“Matan Vilnai: Because of politics, the emergency plans were not activated,” on the Arutz 7 website.

Okay, suppose Lass understands nothing…

The other professors who specialize in immunology — are they babblers too?
Or will no information help — is there perhaps a lock on a certain conception (due to a national anxiety attack?) that prevents seeing the simple reality?

Once the mortality data from the beginning of the year shows that there is no increase at all in mortality this year, the conclusion is one:
There is no epidemic; there was no epidemic.

And a full recovery to all the anxious people who feed on the media and are convinced we are in a rerun of the Spanish flu.

Munitz and company are not babblers. (I know them.) They’re simply not doctors, and they don’t have coronavirus patients whose health they are responsible for. So on the basis of a theory that makes sense but is not necessarily correct, they are willing to conduct an experiment on the population here.
They would presumably say the opposite, that the lockdown is an experiment that may not help in the long run.
In my opinion, the right approach is to rely on those who bear responsibility in the matter — internists and epidemiology experts — and in general to be stringent when life is at stake.
Lass also isn’t stupid. At the beginning there wasn’t enough data and he thought the rate of coronavirus spread was faster and therefore the mortality rate was negligible. And indeed, today we already know that the rate is lower than was thought, though it is still much higher than what Lass said. The issue with him is that he is not a humble and honest enough person to admit a mistake, and so he continues with gut theories to justify himself. By the way, he also doesn’t understand the field — he’s a physiologist.
And regarding the mortality data, don’t worry — in the September-October data you’ll see an increase and you’ll know there’s an epidemic. The wise person sees what is coming and doesn’t wait for the data to prove he was wrong. It’s not the Spanish flu, but 1,000 dead is no picnic either. When a hundred died in Lebanon the whole country went crazy.

With God’s help, eve of Yom Kippur 5781

To Avishai — greetings,

Together with Professors Munitz and Qimron and so on, Dr. Amir Shahar, head of the emergency room at Laniado, also petitioned the High Court of Justice. In an interview with him he mentioned, among other things, that hospital directors have an interest in presenting the most extreme scenarios so that they will receive larger budgets. One of the points Dr. Shahar stressed is that they also present as coronavirus dead those who died of old age or other serious illnesses.

I am not a doctor nor the son of a doctor, and I am not professionally qualified to decide this argument. What is clear to me in “common sense” is that a lockdown that severely harms economic and social life has a heavy economic and psychological price that is no less dangerous than the coronavirus itself. A short lockdown will not help, because after it opens, the infection will return “to full strength.” And a prolonged “lockdown” is a disaster — economically, socially, psychologically, and medically.

The solution, in my humble opinion, is continuing life while being careful. Instead of collective and individual punishments, let them give prizes to anyone who is “caught” observing the rules of caution — masks, distancing, and preventing dense gatherings. And anyone who goes to be tested and cooperates with the isolation obligations should also receive a prize.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook already gave the “diagnosis” in his article “The Generation,” that threats and intimidation don’t work on our generation — our generation awaits explanation, encouragement, and love. That is what will influence and motivate it to improve.

Regards,
S.Tz.

As for the cost-benefit issue of the lockdown — I too am too insignificant to decide. I’m only saying that relying on the reasoning of herd immunity at 20 percent is taking a risk. If you’re saying it’s worth to you 0.25 percent dead out of half the country — around 8,000 dead — and you don’t think a lockdown is preferable, fair enough.
Want, like the professors, a Swedish model? Then sign that you’re accepting, as there, 6,000 dead (and until the vaccine another one or two thousand). They think to make distinctions, that there there are more elderly and so on, but there are also opposite distinctions — there people are more disciplined and the healthcare system is in better shape. A Swedish model means thousands more dead; one has to be honest.
The dead are always people with coronavirus, and when we’re dealing with sick people, coronavirus too is very lethal. So true, many times they would have died from their illness within half a year anyway, but still, in most cases this is death from coronavirus itself.
I have no problem with someone who says a lockdown that costs billions isn’t worth it in order to save a few thousand elderly and sick people, but relying on unsupported reasoning and wanting to decide matters of life and death on that basis is hard for me.
The assumption of the decision-makers and most of the experts on the matter is that a vaccine will arrive in mid-winter, and therefore drastic steps are worthwhile in order to slow the pace and prevent the deaths of a few thousand people until then.

And I’ll conclude with a question: I saw in the media rulings by Haredi rabbis that are lenient in various matters regarding coronavirus, because there is a dispute among the experts and there is a minority that says there is no need for a lockdown and so on. Is it correct to rely on that, or since there is a majority and a minority, is the minority here as though nonexistent, as with judges?
(And I assume neither side is stupid or inflating the data for money.)

In Jewish law there is a discussion about following a majority among experts, and it is accepted that this is like a majority among judges. But here, in my opinion, we do not follow halakhic rules but common sense (or not).

Well, at least in this case the rules would save those who have no common sense.