En route to a coronavirus lockdown? Netanyahu to address Israel at 8 p.m.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and coronavirus commissioner Prof. Ronni Gamzu will address the nation on Sunday night after an hours-long cabinet meeting meant to determine the fate of the country over the next two to six weeks.

The decision to impose a minimum two-week lockdown is expected to pass unanimously, despite many ministers expressing opposition to the plan the the coronavirus cabinet passed last week to help stop the spread of the novel virus. 

Already, the government has approved that schools will continue to operate through Friday, the eve of Rosh Hashanah. The original plan called for the education system to cease operating on Wednesday.

Netanyahu said that the school system will remained close for at least two weeks and then the government will consider opening up preschools and elementary schools, depending on the rate of infection, 

The prime minister said that the total lockdown should last two weeks: “two weeks of antibiotics and then ease up.”

It was expected that there would not be a final decision about closing down Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday and that this decision would be pushed off. According to N12, the airport is likely to be excluded from the lockdown, but a decision will only be finalized after a small committee headed by Transportation Minister Miri Regev meets on Monday.It was expected that the government would vote to allow businesses that are not open to the public would be allowed to continue as usual. The meeting was long and heated, and ministers took their turns attacking the Health Ministry for not doing enough to stop the spread of the virus. Some, such as Science & Technology Minister Izhar Shay (Blue and White) and Economy Minister Amir Peretz (Labor), fought against the closure, saying the harm to the Israeli economy will be too severe for the country to recover.

Finance Minister Israel Katz said difficult decisions were being made, because the Health Ministry did not do its job properly. He claimed that a general closure of the Israeli economy would cause heavy damage to businesses and hundreds of thousands of other unemployed. 

“It is nice that you are raising the red flag now, when hospitals are getting full, but you had to raise that red flag a month or two ago,” Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

Water Minister Ze’ev Elkin accused Gamzu of “zigzagging all the time” and not presenting clear criteria for how the lockdown will end.

“In the coronavirus cabinet, we were told that for a lockdown to be effective, it takes three to four weeks and not two,” Elkin said. “We need to say this honestly to the public.” 

Peretz called for a scaled back closure: “I support a night closure in which about 80% of the economy remains open,” Peretz said Saturday night. “Hundreds of thousands of employees and the self-employed are in existential anxiety. The economic coronavirus pandemic is no less severe than the health pandemic.”

Minister Itzik Shmuli expressed opposition to a full closure because he claimed it would not stand the public test. 

“I propose to better balance health and the economy and strike harder at the centers of illness and not everywhere,” Shmuli said. He also offered that instead of a furlough model, the government would move to a wage subsidy model. 

Regional Cooperation Minister Ophir Akunis (Likud) also warned that a full lockdown would be “a disaster for the Israeli economy.” He said the economy needed to be restored as soon as possible after the holidays.

Similarly, Tourism Minister Asaf Zamir (Blue and White) argued late Saturday night that “a full closure of the entire country during the holidays is too extreme a step and has economic implications that entire industries will not recover from.” 

Zamir lashed out against “outrageous violations” of Health Ministry directives, from nightclub parties to weddings, and against the ministers who have failed to be role models.

“No one is a role model here, including some of my colleagues in the Knesset and government, and this is the result,” he said. But he said that he will vote against the decision to impose the closure nevertheless. 

There was also a colorful debate over whether to allow protests to continue. 

Minister Dudi Amsalem (Likud) actually yelled at attorney-general Avichai Mandelblit for saying that demonstrations should not be stopped.

“Take responsibility for the disease,” Amsalem charged, “public trust is damaged by the demonstrations.” 

Mandelblit responded: “”Demonstrations cannot be prevented. It is not a matter of quantity but of quality.”

Acting Police Commissioner Motti Cohen requested that the government design a clear outline for the demonstrations.

“The police officer at the end should receive clear instructions,” Cohen said. “It is not his job to determine who will demonstrate and who will not.”

“The top officials of the Ministry of Health unanimously agree that the demonstrations as they take place today are a danger to health. Public trust is required here and we need one rule for everyone,” Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kish added.

If a full closure does pass, it is likely to start at 6 a.m. on Friday and last about two weeks. During that time, people will not be able to venture more than 500 meters from home. Schools will be closed, as well as restaurants and at least some businesses. 

The vote on Sunday is taking place against the backdrop of another day of high infection: Some 2,715 people tested positive on Saturday. Israel reached a record high number of patients in serious condition with 513 patients, 139 of whom are intubated. The death toll stands at 1,108.

Furthermore, the number of serious patients is increasing, which puts the country’s hospitals at risk, according to a report by the Coronavirus National Information and Knowledge Center.

“The hospitals’ safety net has been significantly reduced, which creates a danger to the stability of the healthcare system,” the report said.

The total number of serious patients in the hospitals has increased by 51 in the last two weeks.

The report further indicated that the average number of new patients per day has jumped to 2,651 and that the number of infected people is doubling every week.

There are a growing number of patients between the ages of 40 and 50, the report showed. Still, only 12% of sick people in this wave of infection are over the age of 60, as opposed to 17% in the last wave.

“I do not want to use the word collapsing,” Dr. Michael (Miki) Halberthal, the head of Rambam Medical Center, said at a cabinet meeting, according to The Jerusalem Post’s sister paper, Maariv, “but the situation requires immediate closure.”

However, on Sunday, several of the hospital heads expressed different sentiments. 

“The solution is not to lock down tomorrow,” the head of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Ofer Merin, told the cabinet. 

The head of Sheba Medical Center, Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, also said that his hospital is not close to breaking down. 

Further, the head of Rabin Medical Center also contradicted Halberthal: “The trend has indeed changed since mid-August but this is not a collapse of the hospital system. There is unnecessary anxiety. A full closure is not required.”

Yet, the ministers were arguing amid threats by Edelstein that if the program received any more than “cosmetic changes” he would withdraw it from the table. 

“I will not allow the program to be negotiated,” Edelstein stressed at the start of the meeting. “I say clearly at the beginning of this discussion: if the plan is not accepted, I will withdraw it and not bring alternative plans.

“The coronavirus is neither a political or populist matter, it is a matter of life and death,” he continued. “I suggest to anyone who claims otherwise, to tour coronavirus wards and see the situation for themselves.”

He added that if the plan is withdrawn, then by next Tuesday there will be no public restrictions, the price of which would be several thousand dead.

“I will not give in to pressure just to please such and such people,” he stressed.

Just before the meeting, a fight broke out between the directors-general of the Health and Finance ministries as the meeting prepared to commence, N12 reported, over whether to allow businesses to stay open or not. According to the plan, they are supposed to be shuttered – except for essential services – for the first two weeks of the closure.

MEANWHILE, Housing and Construction Minister Ya’acov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) announced earlier in the day that he is resigning from the coalition, writing in his resignation letter that he believed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intended from the start to have a full lockdown during the holidays out of a lack of appreciation for religious observance in comparison to other issues that are not being harmed in the fight against coronavirus.

“My heart is with the thousands of Jews who come to synagogue once a year and this year won’t come at all due to the lockdown,” Litzman wrote. “I warned against a lockdown during the holidays in every possible forum and emphasized that if there is a need for a full lockdown, it should not wait for a rise of infection to get to this pace.”

He said a closure should have been carried out a month ago and not during the High Holy Days. He added that when he made his original plea to Gamzu, the commissioner denied that this was his intention. Litzman said that in retrospect he was proven correct.

“That is why I cannot continue to serve as a minister and I decided to resign from the government and return to the Knesset,” he concluded.

Via the Norwegian Law, Litzman quit the Knesset and was replaced by the next candidate on the UTJ list, Eliyahu Baruchi, who will automatically leave the Knesset when Litzman’s resignation letter becomes official.

The resignation is not final. If carried through, it will take effect in 48 hours.