Nearly a dozen frum girls schools and yeshivas across the US have temporarily shuttered their doors as Covid-19 and influenza cases sweep through the school student and teacher body.
Bais Yaakov of Miami and Yeshiva Toras Emes of Miami have closed their doors due to massive numbers of infections, and Yeshiva Ohr Eliyahu in Los Angeles has moved to virtual instruction as well.
Schools in Brooklyn, suffering from a severe shortage of teachers and substitutes due to illnesses, have reached out to parents requesting that they substitute for several days.
The same phenomenon has been taking place in Lakewood, where numerous schools are searching high and low for people to temporarily replace their teachers and rebbeim who are out sick, and some daycares are experiencing staff shortages as well because of the Covid-19 and influenza viruses that have been spreading like wildfire.
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32 Responses
great opportunity for seminary girls or kollel yungeleit to try subbing & see if this is what they want to do , although subbing is in a way harder
Chicago as well. A certain well known, recent “superspreader” event I understand.
Covid can be controlled by vaccines and masks. Flu went down in the first year of Covid, when so many people were masked and socially distancing. There are too many frum anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. Hashem gave us all brains. Use them to understand the world. Without understanding the world, you cannot understand Torah.
We had about 10 days of flu in the high school that saw a lot of students and faculty out, but it’s passing BH and everyone is starting to come back. No need for panic or hysterics.
Despite this, our Shul just doesn’t get it, and refuses to reintroduce face masks & social distancing, & Rabbi refuses to let people wear face mask in street on שבת despite 20% testing positive {27% in Newark} & 3 Americans testing positive each second
147.
That is correct. You don’t like it stay home. Wear your 2 mask get yours left 4 boosters.
The rest of us. Will deal with it out owe.
Happy 2022!
147:
You are welcome to stay home if you do not like what your shul is or is not doing.
the symptoms of this strain is a cold. You would not mask for a cold, nor would you not go to shul for a cold.
do you know even one person who was sick for more than a day or two, or was hospitalized, or anything more severe than a cough cold and headache?
“Yeshivas Ohr Eliyahu has moved to virtual instruction” being a member of this yeshiva i can say having 1 day off with a zoom call does not classify as virtual instruction
147, best thing you can do for shul is open the doors and at least some windows and make sure ventilation is switched on. Offer to pay for heat. Daven nearby outside the doors, coming in and out when necessary.
Wearing mask outside is less important unless you are walking in crowds. Just leave the mask in shul. Walk on the street where it is safe l’hathila to avoid emotionally unpleasant walking around people.
This is an inconvenience not a crisis.
It started in Israel.
I don’t understand how Rabbis, etc. don’t encourage/let people wear masks, social distance, etc. due to COVID ! How is this not Pikuach Nefesh?
Your the one who doesn’t get it either stay home or find a new shul with masks
@147, where in Newark do you daven?
147, kudos to your Rabbi for maintaining sanity in the world.
Just don’t go out if you’re worried, and choose a Rov that is better suited to you.
Aseh lecha rav
Turns out “natural immunity” does not work as well as the vaccine and the anti vaxers in Lakewood are reaping what they sowed.
Moshe Rabbeinu wore his mask at all times, including shabbos. The mask was to protect others from gazing at his face. The midbar was a Biblical Reshus Harabbim with 600,000 inhabitants. I guess your Rabbi would have told Moshe he mustn’t wear on shabbos.
A mask is like an article of clothing and there should be no question that wearing it constitutes carrying. Ask your Rabbi for his halachic source. Inquiring minds would like to know. New chumrahs seem to be popping up every day. If he feels that way he should at least provide masks on Shabbos for the people once they arrive in shul.
Tag in far rockaway along with darchei’s preschool also didn’t have school today
Ydei chessed- I actually do know people who are hospitalized. People ARE dying from this strain of Covid.
Since Israel closed their borders when Omicron struck, clearly Omicron is highly dangerous, otherwise why they have shuttered their borders? Surely כסף יענה את הכל is exceedingly important to the current “self Jew hating” government.
147: Find yourself a new shul and a new Rav with some common sechel. Wearing a mask in shul and allowing for some separation is just common sense and doesn’t impost a burden on anyone. The rav of your shul obviously feels to the contrary so time to relocate. Hopefully, this new Omicron variant will remain relatively mild and not challenge the chevrah kadishahs like Delta did last winter.
Achdoot, you clearly have not learned the sugya of what constitutes pikuach nefesh
To all those claiming the vaccine protects and its the fault of those who don’t vaccinate or mask etc. We go monthly for medical treatment in a hospital that does not cater to the frum community and is actually located in a very liberal area. Last week half the nurses and administration were out sick. Half our procedures were cancelled due to staffing shortages. These nurses and staff members were there last month and had all been masked vaccinated and boostered. Im sorry to shatter your illusions.
Step away from daily arguments for second: we, as a Jewish society, lived under different circumstances. All our institutions are important in a long term and showed their importance, but it is not such a big deal to step away from a school when there is an outbreak. Even when a kid has regular flu or cold, polite parents will not send the kid to school to infect others.
If there is an outbreak, take kids home for a week and enjoy learning and playing with them. You don’t need to rely on zoom classes if they are not working well. If you can’t take off the whole day from your learnign or working, give kids a sefer to read, pair them for hevrusa, give them a physiology textbook (R Twersky ZT’L recommends everyone to learn it, not necessarily on yeshiva time).
The best way to see if there is an outbreak seems to be to refer to local covid wastewater monitoring done by your water provider. Mine posts numbers online daily and they went up 30x from Dec 1 to Dec 31, starting exponential growth on Dec 15.
Websters dictionary:
VACCINE:”any preparation so used to produce IMMUNITY to a specific disease”.
Stop the great lie, this is not a vaccine.
Therapist mom, the same situation everywhere. Those who are vaccinated get (less) infected, but are protected from severe disease 5-15x times comparing with unvaxed. So, hopefully all these heroic people who face sick people daily will be back soon, rather than severely sick. If someone is unvaxed and goes to that hospital, he is presenting a higher danger to the personnel.
I happen to have received the vaccine as soon as it became available. As a whole the omnicron variant is less severe. We do not have enough data on this variant to “scientifically” prove anything.
Miami schools did not “close its doors”. It gave off on a Friday which was a quarter day anyways because of New Years. Do some research before you sensationalize.
al daas, we are just getting more information now about covid vaccine than ever before in history.
If you look at effectiveness of measles, polio, smallpox vaccines – they are 90-95-97% after 1-2 doses, some more after more doses. Such effectiveness was sufficient to fight those diseases.
Another aspect: it is a new virus that has a lot of biological opportunities to mutate to something new until it achieves it “best” configuration(s). As it went through 0.5 bln human beings, the virus achieved some of those mutations. General theory says that eventually diseases mutate to more infectious but less lethal mutations. This seems to hold true in the modern world: when there is a more severe mutation, people reduce activity, when there are less severe, people increase, thus favoring less lethal mutations.