The interviewer pushed Deri on the decision by him and Housing and Construction Minister Ya'acov Litzman to vote against the decision by coronavirus commissioner Prof. Ronni Gamzu to place a lockdown on a number of cities throughout Israel, including haredi and Arab cities.
Deri responded that he didn't vote against the lockdown proposed by Gamzu because it was on haredi cities, but rather because experts in the coronavirus cabinet told him that the move wouldn't help prevent a national lockdown in any case.
The interior minister added that the commissioner and Health Ministry had repeatedly told the cabinet in the past two months that "slowly, slowly within 10-12 weeks it will start to fall, it will start to balance, everything is under control," and that the ministers had accepted all the decisions brought before them.
"Sadly, we can't avoid the truth and we need to say the truth: In order for the State of Israel to get out of 3,000, 2,700 [daily new infections]....according to the opinion of the experts, we will need to enter a general lockdown," said Deri. "There is no way in the world, no one has proved a way, to drop from the level of thousands [of daily new infections] to the level of dozens. This will only happen in a general lockdown."
"A lockdown is awful. A lockdown is the taking away of personal rights. A lockdown is a blow to the economy. A lockdown is very problematic. But a lockdown is done when it has a purpose, when it will bring to a desired outcome," stressed Deri, adding that the lockdown on the 30 red cities was presented to the coronavirus cabinet as a decision in advance to a national lockdown and not a way to prevent such a lockdown.
"A general lockdown will occur soon and the government will meet on Thursday in order to decide on this. To go now and to make a lockdown on 30 red cities is just a preparation for the larger lockdown, and the police and Home Front Command say, to prepare for and to control a lockdown on 30 red cities is much more difficult than handling a lockdown on the whole country," explained the minister.
Deri stressed that when he asked the experts in the cabinet if the lockdown on the 30 red cities had even a slight chance of "saving the country" from a general lockdown, none of the experts were willing to say that it would do so.
"Gamzu and the Health Ministry said one thing: 'there won't be any way to avoid a general lockdown, but we're suggesting doing the lockdown at first on the red cities to do a little to halt [infection rates] and in order to prepare a little better for a general lockdown, we need a little more time, another week or two weeks," added Deri.
The interior minister added that he was not against Gamzu and not working against Gamzu and would work to implement all decisions made by the cabinet, including those he disagrees with.