The Health Ministry announced Wednesday that the number of coronavirus patients diagnosed in Israel has risen to 97.
Out of 82 patients, 71 remain hospitalized across the country, five are on their way to hospital, three are in-home patients, and an additional three have recovered and been released.
The majority of the patients are in relatively mild condition, four are in moderate condition – and one is in serious condition. The latest is an ambulance driver from the Jerusalem community of Einav who contracted the virus from a group of Greek tourists diagnosed with the disease. He has since developed acute pneumonia and was placed on ventilator.
Rebecca Glatt, the wife of a resident of Einav who infected with the Coronavirus, has published a painful post in which she responds to criticism directed at her.
“Hi, this is me,” she writes, “the one whom the news said went to visit her sick husband diagnosed with the coronavirus in isolation and then went around making sure to pass it on to you. Despite what you’ve been told, I never visited him. Nor was he in isolation when we did meet. We didn’t even spend time skiing in Italy, or return from a luxurious vacation in Thailand. My husband is an ambulance driver.”
“In the evening, I took my husband Joel to the hospital when we realized his pneumonia was getting worse. When it was suggested he had contracted the Coronavirus, he was immediately quarantined and we were banned from spending time together. Security personnel picked up my two children and me and placed us in home isolation where we remained until receiving word in the evening that we were all sick. It was only then that I first was able to see my husband after learning that he was ill, with all of us in exactly the same condition,” Glatt stated.
“Since the case was made public, all the places I visited last Thursday when I didn’t even know any of us were ill were publisized. This didn’t prevent people from calling me derogatory terms and accusing me of horrible things. Over the past 48 hours I’ve been recording anonymous phone calls, threats against my life, and harsh claims from people I don’t even know. From the hospital isolation facility and with the remainder of my strength in wake of the inferno we’re going through, I wish to convey a clear and succinct message to the people of Israel: The Coronavirus [cannot destroy] us, but slander against one another might.”
“Let me tell you who my husband is. He has been an ambulance driver for the past 10 years who has never made a distinctions for race or sex, and always maintained public health and Ministry of Health guidelines. Now look, I have no expectation from the press – that it will not use a blown-up yellow-journalism headline that will win me a measure of applause from the ‘talkbacks.’ I really don’t, but I do have one expectation of you.”
“My dear and beloved Israel, do you think that a person who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus would deliberately infect people including his own flesh and blood, his immediate family? What is happening to us? Have we all gone crazy? Has hysteria already made us completely insane?”
She stated that she has no reason to feel remorse for her actions. “I am Rivka and today I proudly tell you: I am the wife of the man who may have driven a corona patient without any protection [and therefore contracted it] because that is the price he has been paying for years of protecting and preserving the people of Israel. Today, he and his family are paying double the price for their mission. This is because on the day that Joel chose it, we knew that it was [intended for all of us]…And the main thing, and the main thing is not to be afraid at all (well known words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav, ed.) and to love truth and peace (a famous quote from Zachariah, chap. 8, ed.).”
The World Health Organization officially announced Wednesday that the coronavirus eruption can be labeled as a worldwide pandemic. The organization’s spokesman, Adhanum Tadros said that while it has spread across the world, an official definition of the virus has yet to be presented by the organization.
In Iran, considered one of the major centers of the outbreak, the country’s vice president and two members of government have been infected. The number of deaths in the Islamic Republic stands at 354 and amount of individuals infected is approaching 10,000. In France, Spain and Germany, more than 1,500 cases of the virus have been documented thus far in each country. Italy alone has reported more than 12,000 cases with 827 deaths.
Source material can be found at this site.
