I say bla bla bla, not because I am flippant about the pandemic. It is simply that the relevant information can be summed up concisely, and the spillage of words to which we are exposed is totally superfluous and boring.
By now, we are all aware of the fact that the COVID-19 will be around for a while, in the form of variants that differ from each other in their rate of contagiousness and resistance to the available vaccinations, and that we shall have to learn to live side by side with it, as best as we can. We must also accept the fact that the effectiveness of the vaccinations diminishes quite rapidly and that we shall have to get vaccinated periodically, so that if we shall contract the virus, at least our symptoms will be lighter, and the length of our illness will be shorter.
We are told that vaccinations designed to better contend with the new variants will be available only in the approaching autumn or winter. This raises the dilemma whether one should get a third vaccination now, or wait until the updated vaccination is available. The Government has decided that it is the most vulnerable age group (60+) that should be vaccinated now, together with children and youths, and over one million persons who have avoided being vaccinated to the present – either as a matter of principle, or because they couldn’t be bothered. The assumption today is that while those who have contracted the Delta virus include both vaccinated and unvaccinated persons, as well as younger and older persons, it is the unvaccinated and older persons who receive the more severe symptoms, are ill for longer periods of time, and are more likely to die of the virus, which suggests that it is they who should most urgently be vaccinated – for the first and second, or the third time.
On this issue, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach is different. He believes everyone should be immediately vaccinated for the first, second and third time, even though no international authority – including the FDA in the US – has recommended a sweeping third vaccination at this juncture, and that medically there is as yet no proof that a third vaccination, within a relatively short time from the second one, is desirable and safe. In his own words, Netanyahu based his recommendation on two conversations with “my good friend Albert Bourla” – the CEO of Pfizer, who is in a built-in conflict of interests, since his business is to sell drugs. In the first three months of 2021, Pfizer earned $3.5 billion dollars from the COVID-19 vaccine: nearly a quarter of its total revenue.
IN GENERAL, on the issue of vaccinations Netanyahu is inclined to be hysterical – preferring to exaggerate – at whatever price. Few might remember that about half a year after he returned to power in 2009, there was an outbreak of the Mexican Flu (better known as the Swine Flu), and that at the time Israel ordered 7.3 million vaccination doses for NIS 450 million from France. In the final reckoning only 700,000 persons were vaccinated, Israel canceled an order for 2 million doses, and managed to avoid paying part of the sum it had undertaken to pay, but still ended up throwing 4.6 million doses, and NIS 375m. down the drain.
Five months ago (a week before the fourth round of elections), the Ministry of Finance revealed in a deliberation of the Knesset Finance Committee that Israel had purchased 15 million doses of anti-COVID-19 vaccinations, at NIS 2.6 billion (i.e. NIS 173.3 per dose), and was expecting that another NIS 2.5b. would be spent by the summer of 2021. We have no additional details about all of this, nor for that matter, how much money went down the drain in the haphazard purchase of thousands of totally useless ventilators, purchased hysterically abroad by all sorts of unqualified persons in the early months of the pandemic.
The second issue on which there are differences of opinion are lockdowns. During the first 16 months of the pandemic Israel experienced three lockdowns, that led to tens of thousands of businesses closing down, the activity of numerous sectors stopping completely, and hundreds of thousands of persons being at least temporarily unemployed. Israel’s national debt grew significantly, to over a NIS trillion (at least NIS 200b. of this resulting from the pandemic), as did the ratio of the debt to GDP. Most of Israel’s children and youths (at least in the non-haredi sector) lost over a year’s schooling, while the social seclusion created psychological havoc amongst them. In addition, domestic violence increased and the rate of broken families rose.
Bennett’s policy is to do everything possible to avoid another full-scale lockdown, which is by no means an easy goal to achieve, especially given the differences of opinion within the government, and amongst the experts, regarding the practical means to contend with the pandemic, while leaving the economy, the schools, and social life open. This policy might, of course, end in total failure, but to say that trying to get the public to act responsibly, in order to avoid a lockdown, constitutes a lack of policy and demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the situation (as Netanyahu keeps doing, when he mocks the current government) is audacious and unworthy. Opting for another total lockdown is an easy way out, but not necessarily one Israel can afford.
The third issue in dispute is around what should be done with Ben-Gurion Airport. Neither Netanyahu nor Bennett, with their respective female Ministers of Transport, have acted effectively to prevent arrivals from abroad introducing new variants of the coronavirus into Israel, to stop flights to and from countries with high rates of corona infection, to create decent and effective quarantine arrangements, and an effective service for corona tests for travelers. The dilemma confronting the current government is more complicated, because of the desire to maintain as much normalcy as possible in everyday life.
This does not only relate to the airport. In the name of normalcy, Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton objects to the vaccination of children and youth within the school compounds (rather than leaving it to the health funds, within their facilities), and “hysterical” protocols for dealing with individual cases of pupils and/or teachers contracting the virus.
The problem is not what she says, but how. To say that introducing vaccinating into the schools is a “crime” and calling for the firing of the Ministry of Health Public Health Services head Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, because, in Shasha-Biton’s opinion, she is one of those responsible for creating an atmosphere of hysteria, is counterproductive. On the other hand, let us not forget that the very same Shasha-Biton was the only voice within the Likud in the previous Knesset that dared challenge Netanyahu’s ruinous lockdown policy.
The writer was a researcher in the Knesset Research and Information Center until her retirement, and recently published a book in Hebrew, The Job of the Knesset Member – An Undefined Job, soon to appear in English.