Israeli government's tight grip on pandemic slips

The Aug. 9 announcement by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it was cautioning travelers to avoid Israel due to the renewed spread of the coronavirus should be a wake-up call to the Bennett-Lapid government and the soft-handed policy it has adopted in dealing with the epidemic.

Thanks to an effective public relations campaign, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has, until now, marketed himself as being more in control of the situation than his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu. Bennett really wants to convince the public that he has maintained his composure; he certainly doesn’t want to scare them. The problem is that all of his efforts don’t seem to be enough, at least not until now. The fact that a friendly country such as the United States has decided that the coronavirus situation in Israel poses a serious threat raises many questions about the way the prime minister is handling the situation.

Meanwhile, statistics released by the Health Ministry on Aug. 10 are particularly disconcerting. They seem to indicate that the government has lost control when it comes to the spread of the virus. Aug. 9 saw a record number of new cases, with 6,300 people infected in the previous 24 hours alone. What is more troubling, however, is the rising number of the critically ill, which is now approaching 400 people, a record high since April. One other figure indicating that the epidemic is not being handled effectively is the increasing number of deaths; some 80 people died of the coronavirus in the previous 10 days, after there had been many days where no one died. 

Ever since the coronavirus broke out a year and a half ago, the handling of the epidemic has come to be seen as a test of leadership for many of the world’s leaders, particularly in the democratic states. At the time — with no vaccine developed and no cure — the new virus caught even the most advanced health care systems off guard. In combination with globalization and the need to act in an environment of chronic uncertainty, the virus posed an enormous challenge to leaders around the world. Both President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost support from their respective electorates, even though the two men adopted very different approaches to handling the virus. Trump ignored it, while Netanyahu foresaw the potential disaster and imposed strict restrictions and closures. Then, once a vaccine became available, he threw his entire reputation behind it, and scored a remarkable success.