Second wave of virus ravages Israel's Arab population
According to health experts, weddings and conspiracy theories are behind the high number of new infections in Arab-Israeli society.
Israel will go into full lockdown this week starting Sept. 18, the eve of the Jewish New Year. Once that happens, Israel will be the first country in the developed world to impose a second lockdown.
How did Israel go from being the country that “world leaders wanted to study because of its successful approach to dealing with the coronavirus,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted, to a “red-zone” state with significantly higher infection rates than the rest of the world? In a report by Johns Hopkins University, Israel ranked first in the world in per capita infection for the week ending on Sept. 2, with an average of 199.3 infections per million inhabitants every day of that week.
On Sept. 6, the government announced a curfew from 7:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. and the full closure of all educational institutions in 40 towns, most of them Arab or ultra-Orthodox communities. The Arab population is having a very different experience in the second wave. During the first, Arab society excelled at following guidelines and just 5% of infections were among the Arab community. Today, new infections from the Arab community make up about 30% of the nation’s total.
What happened in the second wave? How did the Arab community go from being a source of admiration to one of infection since life went back to normal in May? The main source of infection seems to be weddings and other special events.
