Excuses for not isolating.

I have a better idea for you. Why don’t you stop looking to see what yenim is doing and worry more about yourself. Worry about your midos. Are they good? Do you perhaps look at other people and find the bad things about them? Think about it.

Stop worrying about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. YOU should only be concerned about YOURSELF.

How about, I’m likely to catch it regardless of what I do, and the price of isolating is too high relative to the very small chance of death or serious illness.

If you consider the typical Yid gives up most of his income by deciding on being Shomer Shabbos, and then undertakes a frum lifestyle which takes up virtually all of his disposable income, and he does that not out of fear of a virus, but out of fear of Ha-Shem. And he probably believes that Torah and Mitsvos is not only his raison d’etre, but is the entire reason the universe was created, and is allowed to continuing in existence. So there is a chance of 100 in 100 that if he gives up Torah and Mitvos his world will disintegrate. And then try to scare him with a virus that apparently only makes people sick in 1 in 10 cases (based on antibody and ransom testing data), and only causes serious illness perhaps 1 in 20, and is fatal only 1 in 200, it just isn’t very scary.

I think the generalizations are making a lot of drama.
1. There are people who don’t want to continue isolating after TWO MONTHS of it and they are being accused of not isolating.
2. Although many people had very mild cases, many, many of those people who didn’t get “really sick” suffered terribly. Some say it was the worst pain of their lives, that they wanted to die, that they thought they would die etc. These are quotes from those who “just got sick but didn’t have to go to the hospital”
3. Isolating and social distancing is NOT intended to eradicate the disease, just stagger the infections. So new cases are expected and mostly unpreventable in the LONG term. We must prevent it from spreading to the high risk population, but there was never a possibility of making it go away by staying home. Don’t blame new infections on people as if they weren’t part of the plan.
4. Finances is NEVER a good reason to put any lives at risk. Suffering long term health and emotional damage from losing everything on the other hand is a legitimate reason to weigh which is the lesser of two tragedies. But people saying the economy overall is worth more than a life are nutcases.
5. Saying a medication is safe or not safe is irrelevant at this time. Is chemo safe? would you give it to your kid as a booster? No. When doctors provide medications they do so in terms of the risk of taking it versus the risk of not taking it in terms of what is currently going on in the persons physiology. Something being safe for lupus means it’s better than what lupus has to offer. Something being safe for Covid19 just needs to be better than what the risks of covid are offering.
6. Although not everyone followed the social distancing/quarantine, most people did. And just because the news says it was a jewish problem, that doesn’t mean it was, cuz there are plenty videos to show it wasn’t.
7. Just because it was necessary to stop minyanim and yeshivos from meeting, doesn’t mean that avodas Hashem is not the absolute priority in our lives and what really sustains us. The ones who mistakenly took that fact to mean it is okay to put others at risk are no worse than those who wish to continue to put the physical precautions over spiritual actions when it is no longer proscribed.
7a. Not a lot of care was taken to even clarify if people were put at risk in the minyanim
7b. Not a lot of the people screaming about minyanim opened their mouths even once about grocery shopping in big chains
7c. Sometimes we really do have to follow health guidelines even when they infringe on what we believe is right. Follow your Rav, and check your motives.

Syag excellent post

Thank you

The only minor quibble is regarding “Finances is NEVER a good reason to put any lives at risk. Suffering long term health and emotional damage from losing everything on the other hand is a legitimate reason to weigh which is the lesser of two tragedies. But people saying the economy overall is worth more than a life are nutcases.”

I’m conflicted (and I’m not sure I disagree with you given the middle sentence there ) . It is a common refrain that “saving a life trumps everything*” but that isn’t completely true. Fro example in regard to pidyon shevuim, do we give everything to save a person? shulchan Aruch YD 254:4 says this is assur because of “tikkun olam” (Now it depends on what the reason for this tikun olam is: (Gemara gives two reasons too much pressure on the community or to prevent further kidnappings. distinction wopuld be if a individual can afford it so there is no pressure on the community can he do it. Achronim seem split as to how we pasken ) As to how much it relates to a virus but clearly “”saving a life trumps everything” is not 100% true.

It is clear to me that preventing the overwhelming of the hospital system was worth the shutdown. I donl;t think reasonable people can disagree on that.
I am not so sure about shutting the economy overall” to save ” a life” I am even less sure about where that line would be drawn 2 lives ? 100? 1000?

Again I dont think we disagree, because the “financial pressure” the Gemara discusses isnt (I dont htink) money to go to disneyland or something like that. Without an economy society can’t function leading to many problems including, as you put it, “Suffering long term health and emotional damage” I think (hope) the people who say “the economy overall is worth more than a life ” mean it that way

* yes except 3 cardinal sins

“There was never a possibility of making it go away by staying home”?
– Yes. Flatten the curve always meant stagger the rate of infection so that the hospitals and their staff don’t get overwhelmed.
And need to open back up to save the economy (and other health problems caused by extended lock down) says nothing about the terrible tzar people might endure until death when catching covid due to opening things back up.

(Unless they prove or decide to accept and make available the Zelenko Protocol which Dr. Zelenko very much still insists works and apparently the President of the United States believes and is on himself, or they come up with something better.)

Syag, we discussed this before. Keeping the economy closed creates other, serious health issues. I have glaucoma and could not get my eye pressure checked for 4 months . My eye dr reopened last week. Diabetics, heart patients and many other people with chronic conditions have gone unchecked and are potentially worse. How many cancers have gone undetected because diagnostic procedures have been cancelledm .Hospitals are in grave financial condition because they have been unable to perform the elective procedures that they make money on. The Covid cases are money losers. The economy vs covid was never meant to be the issue. At this point people have to go back to work. Anyone drawing a salary has no business telling the unemployed to stay home. It’s not either or at this point. We can reopen the economy while still taking steps to protect the most vulnerable. Will there be more deaths? Most likely yes, but there is no way to tell if it wouldn’t have happened anyway .

I know the lockdown was officially about flattening the curve to prevent overwhelming the system, but I don’t believe its value (and certainly the value of maintaining social distancing longer term) was/is limited to that.

First of all, how can we ignore the value of extending life? Think about how much time, effort, and money we put into extending the life of an I’ll, even terminally ill, loved one (we shouldn’t know from such things). Even if ultimately everyone would get it, ch”v, flattening the curve extended lives

Also, the longer someone waits to get sick, the more the medical establishment knows how to treat it, and hopefully be”H they’ll find better treatments and even hopefully vaccines, so hopefully many lives can be saved.

“Also, the longer someone waits to get sick, the more the medical establishment knows how to treat it”

A great point. I can’t put my finger as to what it is, and look forward to data that wil eventually emerge. but without question the covid pats Iv’e seen over the past month did a lot better than those a month before. Again this is purely anecdotal , and I can’t tell you what it is that seems to be helping (remedesvir ? convalescent plasma? stopped giving axithromycin? heparin?) But without question patients who a months ago I’d have thought were doomed (based on then current experience) are doing better when they arrive now

“Maybe the hospitals are less crowded so the patients are actually getting the attention they need.”

Yes I meat to include that. that is certainly true to. Is challenging managing ICU patients outside of the ICU. In our ICU the doors are see through vitals displayed at the nursing station. aside from the nurse limited to 2-3 patients tops there is someone else monitoring all the vitals.
during the height of corona with these patients being managed on a regular floor in a closed room, Unless the nurse physicly enters the room (After donning proper PPE) nobody knew how the patient was doing , and he/she was caring for more patients than is ideal.

Lack of nutrition I havent seen. I’m skeptical it was as big an issue as reported. Patients and familes often become focused on nutrition /feeding even when patient is say already getting tube feeds or if electrolytes are being monitored. I obviously can’t speak for all hospitals, but more than once Ive met familes accusing hospitals of starving patients who were being getting tube feeds which in their view “isnt really food” .