Speaking in an online press conference, Numa said infection rates in the ultra-Orthodox sector now account for a quarter of all infections.
By JEREMY SHARONIsraeli police officers clash with Ultra Orthodox Jewish men during a protest against the enforcement of coronavirus emergency regulations, in the Ultra Orthodox jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, October 4, 2020(photo credit: NATI SHOHAT/FLASH90)
The head of the Health Ministry’s coronavirus department for the ultra-Orthodox community, Roni Numa, said on Sunday that there was a lack of coronavirus enforcement in the sector because of its political power and the upcoming elections.Numa denied, however, that the COVID-19 infection rate in the yeshiva system is out of control, although he said that several factors had led to an increase in the number of students being infected.Speaking during an online press conference, Numa said infection rates in the ultra-Orthodox sector now account for a quarter of allinfections, while the sector accounts for 11 to 12% of the general population, after having come down dramatically at the end of October and November.Numa said the reason for this was general apathy in the sector towards the COVID-19 crisis, with people thinking either that the pandemic was coming to an end, or that the sector had herd immunity from the previous high levels of infection or from the current vaccination program.He added that “pirate weddings” with large numbers of guests were taking place within the ultra-Orthodox sector and had contributed to the spike in infections.Numa said that enforcement of the regulations in the ultra-Orthodox equivalent of high-schools had also declined, further sharpening the infection rate.Asked whether the lack of enforcement in the ultra-Orthodox sector was due its political power when new elections are near, Numa said that he did indeed believe that this power has affected enforcement.“There are places that we would have wished to see more enforcement,” he said.“The Education Ministry knows about these things, and the police knows about these things. Enforcement in some of these places,especially in educational institutions, is not effective enough. We are in a complicated election campaign and these things have an influence. Anyone who says they don’t influence is obscuring the truth.”Addressing the infection rate in ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, Numa said that since the beginning of the winter term in mid-October, just under 1,000 yeshiva students who attend yeshivas approved by the Health Ministry to operate during the pandemic had been infected, out of a total of some 42,000.About 13,000 of those students have already contracted the virus and have recovered, however.Currently, there are 495 active cases within the yeshivas.Numa said that the situation in the yeshivas was not where he would have wanted it to be, and pointed specifically to the fact that testing in yeshivas has been given lower priority than in other sectors and institutions.This has led to severe delays in obtaining test results of up to five days, leading some students to abandon their isolation before receiving the results.Numa also said that yeshivas have become less stringent in enforcing regulations than they were earlier in the semester, saying that mask wearing had declined, while the original efforts of yeshiva administrations to disperse students to different locations had stopped in many cases and that central study halls were once again being used.“The infection rate inside the yeshivas is under control,” said Numa.“I would have hoped we had lower numbers, but it’s not about to collapse and close down the yeshivas.”
