Israeli Schools Opened Early and a Coronavirus Spread Catastrophe Ensued, Foretelling Disaster If US Schools Reopen In-Person
August 5, 2020
High school class in Israel (US Embassy Jerusalem}
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
Even as yet another wave of shock and bewilderment arises from another revelation of Trump, deadly ignorance, malignant narcissism and sociopathology rippled through the US as the Jonathan Swan Axios interview was aired last night, many school districts and much of the media in the US is succumbing to the Trump/DeVos narrative that schools should reopen. This is despite the clear scientific evidence that the Coronavirus is not going to abide by the “magical thinking” used to justify their self-serving goals.
BuzzFlash has written numerous commentaries on how science clearly informs us that premature opening of schools in-person will lead to student, teacher and extended family infection, and for some older persons (including teachers) death. (You can read the pertinent BuzzFlash commentaries at the bottom of this page.)
One example, among multiple ones, BuzzFlash documented was how in Israel schools recklessly reopened and were the cause of creating a new surge there when the country was starting to contain the Coronavirus. BuzzFlash has referenced a July 14 article from The Daily Beast, “Israeli Data Show School Openings Were a Disaster That Wiped Out Lockdown Gains.” The sub-headline was clear:
Of 1,400 Israelis diagnosed with COVID-19 last month, 657 (47 percent) were infected in schools. Now 2,026 students, teachers, and staff have it, and 28,147 are quarantined….
Israel’s unchecked resurgence of COVID-19 was propelled by the abrupt May 17 decision to reopen all schools, medical and public-health officials have told The Daily Beast….
Just in time for the kindling wood fire that will come with US school reopenings, on August 4 The New York Times got around to reporting on the Israel experience with an understated headline, “When Covid Subsided, Israel Reopened Its Schools. It Didn’t Go Well.”
Additional insight from these paragraphs from The NYT article indicates how Trump and DeVos have still dangerously managed to co-opt the narrative that schools must open in-person, even if many districts are refusing to do so:
Confident it had beaten the coronavirus and desperate to reboot a devastated economy, the Israeli government invited the entire student body back in late May.
Within days, infections were reported at a Jerusalem high school, which quickly mushroomed into the largest outbreak in a single school in Israel, possibly the world.
The virus rippled out to the students’ homes and then to other schools and neighborhoods, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives.
Other outbreaks forced hundreds of schools to close. Across the country, tens of thousands of students and teachers were quarantined.
Does the US media trust Trump who led us into a wildfire surge of Coronavirus by insisting on “reopening” the economy? Do they think that the Coronavirus behaves differently in Israel? This is about science, not about the “dominating” personality of a seriously deranged man who believes the COVID infection toll “is what it is.”
Once again, BuzzFlash calls this willful homicide, not negligence. It is Trump’s determined choice to show that he will not be cowed by the deadly and horrifying medical devastation caused by the Coronavirus, with infection and death coming at our expense.
The media should pay heed to what Israeli experts told The NYT:
Israel’s advice for other countries?
“They definitely should not do what we have done,” said Eli Waxman, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and chairman of the team advising Israel’s National Security Council on the pandemic. “It was a major failure.”
The US now averages more than 60,000 confirmed infections a day, compared to below 100 confirmed daily infections in Israel after lockdown measures and other preventative transmission strategies and before the reopening of schools.
However, in alarming echoes of Trump, his fellow strongman Netanyahu was eager to start revving up the Israeli economy:
In his inaugural speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a new budget that would deliver three things: “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” His new education minister, Yoav Gallant, said that the school system’s “immediate mission” was to allow parents to return to work with peace of mind.
Inna Zaltsman, an Education Ministry official, said administrators also wanted “to return the children to routine as much as possible, for their emotional and pedagogic well-being.”
About sixty percent of the students were asymptomatic.
It appears that the catastrophe that befell Israel is about to be repeated in the United States, driven by a pathological man in the White House and his multi-billionaire Secretary of Education who despises public education.
The infection and death (primarily among teachers and family members) that we are about to experience could have been prevented, if the media stopped amplifying the rantings of a malignant ignorant man pretending to be the president, when his real skills are entertainment and being a con artist, including in demanding his pernicious “medical advice” be followed.
Hold on, because unnecessary and profound tragedies are about to befall us, even though the experience of Israel provides proof that rushing to open schools in-person is an infectious and lethal choice.
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More Recent Relevant BuzzFlash Editor’s Commentaries:
Trump's Sociopathic Magical Thinking Will Ignite a Horrific Catastrophe if Schools Reopen In-Person
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