Second wave of coronavirus in Israel calls into question Netanyahu's leadership

Trust has played a nasty trick on Benjamin Netanyahu, the president of Israel. The authorities ended the containment battle against the coronavirus at the end of May. With less than 300 dead, Netayahu was showing the rest of the world how well he was doing. Schools, bars, gyms were opened... Just six weeks later the authorities have lost control of the virus. Confinements have returned in several districts of Jerusalem, bars and classes have been closed again and 1,500 contagion cases are reported every day. The citizens have exploited the situation and now blame the president for organizing an impulsive de-escalation. This discontent, coupled with the emerging economic crisis, poses a real threat to the leadership of the country's longest-serving ruler. 

A new peak in infections has been recorded this Tuesday, with 1,681 infections in 24 hours, while alerts about the lack of control of the pandemic have increased. Seven percent of the tests being done are positive and the country has surpassed 41,000 infections since the beginning of the pandemic, with more than 21,000 cases and 368 deaths, according to one Efe report. 

The coordinator of the pandemic of the Israeli Ministry of Health, Tal Brosch, has assured this Tuesday in the radio of the army that up to now they have managed to treat the most serious patients, 177 hospitalized, but they will not be able to resist "for much more time", if the tendency continues. Professor Eli Waxman of the Weizmann Institute, who was part of the expert committee that managed the first wave, believes that the current one is "more dangerous" because "time has been lost", "no skills were developed when the number was low" and today "the virus is out of control".

In addition to the worrying health situation, the economic consequences of the pandemic are already beginning to be felt. Unemployment has shot up to 21%, when in February it was only 4% and the collapse of GDP will be 6%, according to various estimates. The Government has only disbursed half of the EUR 25.6 billion it promised at the start of the health crisis. Half of the Israelis fear that they will not be able to make ends meet and cover their running costs, according to a study by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Those hardest hit by the pandemic are the self-employed and temporary workers. Hundreds of small businesses have been forced to close and many families are already beginning to suffer from lack of income due to unemployment. 

About 10,000 people gathered in front of Tel Aviv's city hall on Saturday to protest the bleak economic outlook. During the protest, safety distances were not respected and there were some disturbances between demonstrators and police. 

"Looking back, we must admit that the final reopening of the economy was premature," confessed Netanyahu on Thursday as he presented a plan to revive the economy with an investment of 20.5 billion euros until June 2021 in an attempt to quell the protests that took place throughout last week. Only 15% of Israelis are satisfied with Netanyahu's handling of the coronavirus crisis compared to 61% who are dissatisfied, according to a survey by local television channel Canal 13. 

Neither the corruption cases nor the controversial annexation of the West Bank had undermined both Netanyahu's leadership and the mismanagement of de-escalation after the first confinement decreed to contain the coronavirus. "It is clear that the pandemic is spreading every day and there is a real risk that it will paralyse our health system," the prime minister has come to acknowledge. "Israel's experience must serve the rest of the world. We cannot move from a toral confinement to an accelerated lifting of restrictions without proper planning. This is a long-distance race, not a speed race," epidemiologist Hagal Levine told Reuters. 

Schools were one of the main sources of the pandemic's resurgence. The population has not become aware of the use of masks either, the health minister even allowed children to take them off during the heat wave to go to school. Public Health Director Siegal Sadetzki resigned as she felt her warnings about the risks of accelerated de-escalation were ignored. "The gains made during the first wave have been wiped out by the widespread and rapid reopening of the economy," she said.