The Israeli Ministry of health’s coronavirus preventative guidelines are faulty

When you start reading the Israeli Ministry of health’s coronavirus preventative guidelines, you could become overwhelmed by the enormous amount of words but the most important information is not there. And some of it is outright wrong. Let me tell you.

1. When you have no symptoms (or no symptoms anymore), you could still spread the infection. Be tested is the only way to find out. None of the test kits are perfect yet but that’s the best there is.

2. Their short and clear guidelines on how to not get the infection are rather about how not to give the infection to others.

3. Most importantly, start practicing the following now the infection chance is still low. This is how to protect yourself:

A. Wash your hands with soap or alcohol before you eat or touch your mouth’s, nose’s or eyes’s soft tissue. Don’t close the tap with the hands you just washed (use your elbow, clean tissue). Don’t dry them on something others touched who didn’t wash their hands with soap.

Become aware of where your hands are. Don’t absentmindedly touch your face or that of someone else (like someone you feed).

If you do all of this, it might still be best not to shake hands. Why would you network the virus? It is safe to run elbows or embrace with your face away from their face.

B. Don’t let other people touch or prepare your food, set your table or give you utensils unless they washed their hands and didn’t touch the soft tissue of their face. (Someone touching their face while wearing gloves makes the gloves as suspect as unwashed hands.)

C. Don’t let anyone sneeze at you. Avoid crowded places.

D. When others say about your cautiousness: “Wow, you’re so scared to get this?,” tell them: “No, I’m calm because I use my brain and hope.” Or: “No, I’m scared to give you this virus.”

E. Wash all food that you will eat uncooked and then wash your hands. Consider all things others handled (money, credit card) or kissed (mezuzah, Torah scroll, prayerbook) contaminated. Don’t kiss them.

F. Do as the authorities tell you, even if you find their advice over the top.4. Don’t panic and don’t worry.

4. It doesn’t help to get frantic and might even make you make mistakes.

A. Most people will not have any symptoms of the infection. Most people getting sick from it recover completely (98% at least).

B. This might not be an all-or-nothing issue: it’s probably better to get infected with a very small amount of virus than with a lot.

C. Expect to run into many fake YouTube clips to terrify or rob you (see above clip). Use common sense and don’t fall for the scams.

D. Try to think if people promote bogus stuff or reassure falsely just for short-term financial gain for them. Discovering that a reassurance is fake doesn’t mean you should panic.

5. It’s not known if recovering means that you can’t get it again. So far, world-wide, three people who were thought to have healed were found to have the infection. It is not clear if the illness lingered on in them and re-surfaced, if the ‘negative’ test result of being healthy was faulty or if they were re-infected because this immunity is not fully protective.

It is not known yet if this dies down with the passing of winter (like influenza does) but people in Australia (where it is summer now) having it, is not promising.

6. It’s better to suffer some temporary loss (of income, pleasure) than to risk losing your life. If you had a 2% chance to die when crossing a certain street, you would not. This will pass, take it all in stride.

7. If you’re in Israel, you’ll be relatively safe. People are sloppy and make lots of mistakes from stress and being overworked, so watch out for that. But otherwise, medical care is high quality, people care about life-and-death and are not fatalistic, many are world champions in survival.

Researchers are working hard on finding out the best medications to prevent death and on getting to vaccines to prevent the infection. Act as you should to postpone or minimize exposure to the virus so that you and your loved ones will be still here to profit from them.

Now we’re at it, get your regular flue short if you didn’t yet.

8. Tell others to calm down and give them the information.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. * His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1