Corona chronicles

Regarding “Israel’s coronavirus is on the decline: Lockdown, Mother Nature or math?” (May 6), “Government action had nothing to do with the country’s success in the battle against the novel coronavirus, according to MK Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid-Telem).”

The assertion by MK Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid-Telem) that “government action had nothing to do with the country’s success in the battle against the novel coronavirus” is sheer nonsense.

Israel has 16,314 cases and 238 deaths with the population of 9.2 million, so it has 27 deaths per million population which is ten times less than Sweden has per million.

I just cannot imagine that Israel could tolerate 2,380 deaths, which would approach the number of deaths in the Yom Kippur war.

How to explain such numbers? Israel imposed strict restrictions early on and a lockdown at the very beginning of the exponential curve. I believe that it helped that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has Master of Science degree from MIT, whereas Boris Johnson studied humanities at Oxford and Trump has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton school – so Netanyahu was much more receptive to the scientists’ advice.

In addition, the health care providers (Maccabi for instance) monitors remotely every mildly infected person three times a day.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC Beersheba

As a resident of the Nofei Yerushalayim retirement home in Bayit Vegan, I was shocked to read the article “Where there’s a will there’s a way” (May 7), a sweeping generalization of the treatment of residents in retirement homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

My experience has been totally different from what was described. We have been carefully monitored and cared for by the staff since the onset of the pandemic. Families could not visit us in our homes, but masked, gloved and keeping our distance, we could see individual family members, receive shopping, could order and receive food and other requirements. Over the last fortnight, family members booked 30-minute visits and met residents in designated public places outside or inside. Staff kept families fully informed and arranged videos with messages from each family to individual residents, which were screened in various locations in the building.

Meals were always available. We were never restricted to our own apartments, provided we were suitably attired and kept our distance. Residents could always meet one or two other residents. We were encouraged to go out onto the large balcony for fresh air and exercise. Morale was and is high. All residents, staff and nursing personnel were tested and were all negative.

We were never totally isolated and our public places were used sensibly. We never felt abandoned.

HANNI WANDERER

Jerusalem