The ultra-Orthodox community of Kiryat Ya'arim was nicknamed the "Wahan of Israel" at the beginning of the Corona • This week the first pilot of its kind was carried out: "Blitz vaccines" • The result: within two days most of the target population was vaccinated • "This is the first time such a thing was done
"It's a very big excitement, light at the end of the tunnel."
Residents of Kiryat Ya'arim get vaccinated this week
Photography:
Oren Ben Hakon
Monday this week, 2 p.m.
In his office in the Kiryat Ya'arim Council building, Yitzhak Ravitz, the head of the council, is browsing the web page that reports the disease data in the locality, and swallows a small smile of satisfaction.
"We started this week with 250 patients, now there are 161. Something is happening here. There is a decline, and we are starting to see it."
In two hours, a first-of-its-kind pilot will begin here, in which all residents will be called to be vaccinated in an MDA emergency operation in cooperation with the Home Front Command, which will last two days - Monday and Wednesday. Vaccines and whether as a result of the development of antibodies in case they fell ill and recovered
. How does it work together? This is what we tried to understand.
Bureau floor as a pharmacy.
All the workers are recruited to the telephones, trying to reach as many public figures and synagogue collectors as possible, so that they can convince the residents they know to come and get vaccinated.
In recent days, the Chamal Council opened with six telephones, and senior council members also got involved. They called people and called them to come vaccinated, with the approval of the rabbis. The community doctors sent a recording to all residents. .
"this is the first time that such a thing is done in the world, vaccination Cll-iisobi," says Amir Hassidim, a reservist Mikl"r HFC (local Authority Liaison unit) and a resident of Har Adar across the street, the supervisor of the operation.
"There has never been one like it anywhere in the world - not in the United States, not in Canada, not in Australia.
An entire settlement is concentrated in a concentrated manner, in order to achieve herd immunity.
"There is respect here as well for the State of Israel, as well as for the systems that took care of this matter, the Home Front Command, MDA and the other forces that were involved in the operation, and of course, the local council, which was exceptionally involved."
* * *
Kiryat fooling has about 7,100 residents, of whom 3,845 over the age of 16. The ultra-Orthodox community of predominantly modern and M"hotznikim ", rising US and other countries, and the Lithuanian yeshiva students. Most of the city belongs to the Lithuanian faction. Devotees are the minority.
Settlement built in a circle. The streets Long, and a few minutes' drive already allows you to get around. Along the streets are scattered many gardens, some of which, due to the situation, have become synagogues. For example, a green area with some facilities between the buildings on Saints Telez Street is covered with hard cloth, plus plastic chairs and some Standers, has become a real synagogue in the open air. Now there is a presiding prayer here. A quarter of an hour later another minyan is held across the road, in the garden opposite.
Avi Miller, a paramedic and volunteer at the Rescue Union and also an ambulance driver in the organization, lives in one of the nearby houses.
At night he works as a successful wedding singer in the ultra-Orthodox sector, and even now, on non-closing days, he performs at limited weddings.
"Kiryat Ya'arim was the first settlement to be closed in the country, and voluntarily," he says on the balcony of his house, which overlooks the Jerusalem mountains.
"There was a huge illness here a week after Purim. If you told someone then that you were from Kiryat Ye'arim, they would walk away from you for miles.
" And really, people were afraid to talk to me at that time.
They did not know then what corona was, and there was a fear of death here.
I have been an ambulance driver for many years, I have been in thousands of cases of accidents and terrorist attacks, and I have certainly identified a fear of death here. "
How do you explain the high morbidity here?
" Because the locality is not large, so any number of patients will not be noticeable.
But by and large, people here are very guarded.
This is not the population of Bnei Brak.
There are a lot of Americans here, modern people, military men, guys like me, and they are all guards.
I talk to friends and neighbors, and there is a strong desire to get vaccinated here.
"The council here decided four days before the current closure began to enter into a voluntary closure. The synagogues were closed before everyone else. People, as you have seen, moved to pray outside, in the cold, without exception. Including Shabbat, the long prayers. "Anyone who does a wedding or any event here will encounter immediate enforcement. It is not possible to hold events in the locality at all, they take great care of it. The residents also cooperate, are very understanding, sensitive and know how important it is."
Miller says that the council provided a shell for the residents, which will help them get out of the settlement as little as possible, so as not to "import" Corona to Kiryat Ye'arim.
"For example, until the beginning of the plague there was only one grocery store in the whole settlement. People used to go to Jerusalem to buy the Shabbat necessities, challah and other things.
" At the beginning of the Corona, the council set up a huge tent at the entrance to the settlement, open and ventilated. Shabbat and in general, from A to T, at subsidized prices, to encourage people to leave the settlement as little as possible.
"On the personal side, I also did my part to make the residents happy. In the first closure, when even in the open air it was not possible to pray in the minyan, I stood one Saturday in the middle of a central park and just made merry, with tunes and songs. People joined from all the balconies. they clung to anything that could get them some situation. this is a prayer I will never forget.
"later, the council hired me and other artists from the community, including members of amplification and sound, so we are happy the residents B'msaiot joy.
This is how they gave us a livelihood even during the corona.
Think of both us and the residents. "
* * *
Under Miller's house, at the end of the public garden opposite, is a Maccabi HMO mobile that has recently arrived, which came to vaccinate the residents who are members of the HMO.
A huge tent is stretched next to the mobile, with one side waiting for the vaccine, and the other side the vaccinated, who are asked to wait a quarter of an hour after the vaccination.
The place is bustling with activity, using the moving film method.
Two nurses sitting in a car believing in the vaccinations.
"From the moment Rabbi Kanievsky ordered the vaccination, it was clear to me that I would do it as soon as possible," says Avraham, 41, a student who had booked a vaccination appointment.
"My main urge to come is because the rabbis said they should get vaccinated," he says.
"At first I thought we would have to travel for the vaccine to a bigger place, like Mevaseret Zion or even Jerusalem, but here, the vaccine has reached us, even though we are a relatively small community. And people are in a hurry to get vaccinated."
At home, his five children are waiting, who do not go to school because of the closure.
When he returns home, his wife will come to get vaccinated.
Outside the vaccine car stands Zeev Reichman, a follower with wigs dangling from the sides of his face, the director of the Mevoot Jerusalem area at Maccabi.
"We brought the car here after the head of the council, Ravitz, contacted us and said that it was not a matter of residents who want to get vaccinated having to leave the settlement and drive to Mevaseret Zion," he says.
"So we lifted the glove.
" Not only a local population arrives at this mobile, but also Arabs who live nearby, in Abu Ghosh.
We were surprised by the volume of demand.
Every evening people come here, come to ask if there are any unnecessary vaccines left and if they can get vaccinated, even if they are not in the age range currently vaccinated.
There are several such Maccabi vehicles around the country, and so, with the mobile, we can also provide service to people with disabilities.
In order for the process to be effective, we ask them to bring relatives and acquaintances with them at happy ages, in order to vaccinate them at the same opportunity. "
The mobile arrives in the locality from the morning and operates until 6 in the evening.
The stock is enough for several hundred vaccinators a day.
"The computer on the mobile is connected to the system, so we know who arrived and who did not," says Reichman.
"As you can see, there is no congestion. People got queues right by the minute. Every half hour we are updated on numbers, to see if we are missing falcons (vaccine vials), and if we find there is an unnecessary amount, for whatever reason, we invite more people to come get vaccinated .
"As of yesterday, Sunday, 79 percent of the adult population over the age of 40, have been vaccinated.
That's a huge number.
I am constantly updated with the data - who has already had the disease, who has had a serological test and has antibodies, who received the first dose of the vaccine, who received the second, and who ordered the first vaccine.
Everything is segmented, we work here like in a military operation. "
Shauli Fischer, assistant to the head of the council, adds:" Our goal is to reach as quickly as possible, perhaps even by the end of this week, a situation where 70 percent of residents over 16 are vaccinated - and reach herd immunity. " Last week, by the way, the United Health Insurance Fund also launched a similar operation in the locality.
Are there also residents who are afraid to get vaccinated?
Reichman: "As soon as the rabbis said - it's all over.
And this is in all shades of the ultra-Orthodox sector.
For example, devotees whose Rebbe has told them to get vaccinated are willing to do so with fire and water.
They are willing to commit suicide and the main thing is to get vaccinated. "
Reichman also characterizes that the reason for the high number of
vaccinated
, relative to the other ultra-Orthodox cities, is related to the locality's population." There are more young people here, there are more smartphones.
People understand interest here.
You will hardly see here, if at all, people who do not want to be vaccinated because of the various conspiracies. "
* * *
In the newer part of Kiryat Ya'arim lives Yael Tzin (26), an ultra-Orthodox media woman who presents programs at the Kikar Hashabat studio.
Yael and her husband Yitzhak (27), parents of three (5 years old, 3 years old and one year old), recovered only two weeks ago from Corona, and according to her, until now her senses of taste and smell have not completely returned.
"Kiryat Ye'arim is probably the first locality where the corona started in Israel with dozens of patients in the locality, immediately after Purim," she says.
"We invented the Israeli mutation."
Her house is quiet now, the children went down with the husband to the nearby park.
"They haven't been to school for more than two months, at first because my daughter was in solitary confinement, and then the supervisor came to visit the daycare just the day she got infected, not knowing she was infected - and again everyone had to go into solitary confinement.
" I told my husband, there is nothing to send anymore, it's just roulette.
I do not have the strength to hear again and again that I have to go in with the children for isolation.
Then it turned out we were contagious, and then we went into general closure.
So that's it, everyone is at home. "
The disease passed with great difficulty." I felt it on my face.
I'm usually a superwoman, fit, whereas then I was in bed unable to move.
But people here are very helpful.
Behind the door, complete food was waiting for me to sit, all the neighbors were divided among themselves.
The children, by the way, were not infected.
We checked them several times with MDA personnel who came here. "
How is Kiryat Ye'arim different from the ultra-Orthodox cities in terms of treating Korona?
"The head of the council took full responsibility for what was happening in the community, at the most personal level. For example, when we got sick, he was the one who officially announced it to me in a personal message on WhatsApp: 'Mrs. Epidemiologist, please answer properly so that we do not later have to reach more and more infections that will spread in the community. He also offered as much help as needed, and not because I am a media woman.
"Ravitz knows about what is happening in every school, in every hyder and in every family, and if there is a verified patient, he updates all the relevant factors - MDA, the health funds and everyone who needs it, in order to save mental anguish afterwards.
From the first moment, the council took firm steps, very significant information and also close supervision that prevented any violation.
"Ravitz wants to be a model, to prove to other communities around the country, not only the ultra-Orthodox, but also to our neighbors, like Abu Ghosh, that the corona can be eradicated by targeted takeover. Everything here works with a very clear explanation, unlike other cities.
" For example, who lives in Beitar Illit, told me that no one spoke to her at any stage.
They did not explain the situation to her.
She is an older woman who speaks English, who does not understand the Hebrew language well, and the ads in the newspapers are not understood by her.
No one came to update her on her or the vaccination campaign.
There is not enough information there, and I would even say that there is almost denial. "
So how do you explain the high morbidity here, in Kiryat Ya'arim?
" This is because there are no shops and businesses here, except for containers, which requires leaving the settlement.
I, for one, work and go out all the time, and am exposed to more people.
And I was really stuck in the workplace.
I was exposed to a verified patient and infected my husband and put us all in isolation.
In general, by the time I was diagnosed with blue, I had already put a lot of people into isolation.
"As much as they try here and are careful, nothing will help if people do not keep themselves at home and do not go out at all. This is the only way that can completely eradicate the corona. The council, in the current conditions, did its best, and also touched on all the small points. For example, built. Exterior tents for synagogues, that people will not have to pray indoors. Want to study and pray? Please, outside.
"There will always be a certain percentage of violators, but here it is almost zero.
My husband went to the beit midrash a few days ago to pick up a book and told me that with the help of the women he saw two students sitting and studying.
They saw Rick there in the synagogue, and in their house there are screams of the children, so they fled to the beit midrash.
"I also freak out at home with the kids. We have a not-very-large apartment, with a half-meter balcony. I work full-time, full-time plus, and can't function. And there are families here with ten kids, routines the size of an apartment."
When you see the plays from Bnei Brak, what goes through your mind?
"They say, 'You ultra-Orthodox are violating, bus burners.' But there are extremists everywhere. True, in Bnei Brak they burned buses, but these are some mentally ill people, who in the end we suffer from. I follow the guidelines with all my might, law-abiding. We do not deserve to accept These generalizations. "
* * *
Two hours before the start of the vaccine blitz, the head of the council tells me about the steps he has taken in the past year to eradicate the corona.
"Every solution we could bring, we brought. For example, the pilot of the tests was here. When Maj. Gen. (Res.) Roni Noma (in charge of the ultra-Orthodox sector at Magen Israel; HB) proposed a test operation for the entire locality, so we could locate all patients And isolate them, I immediately responded in the affirmative, even before I knew the details.
I told him, 'Yes.
Then we will think about exactly how to bring in the residents. '
"That operation was more successful than expected. We did tests for all the residents in two days, and the public came in droves. When the answers began to arrive, it turned out that more than 50 of the subjects were ill, without even knowing it. And that's a lot. These were symptoms and no intention. To be tested, and thanks to the operation we found them, isolated them and helped them, thus preventing hundreds of other patients.
"There was another impact to this operation, because from that moment every time we brought tests to Kiryat Ye'arim, there were long lines.
It is clear to you that if they were to examine the entire State of Israel, they would not only find 10,000 new patients but 100,000, because there are many hidden patients.
The overall operation we did was very helpful, and now we are seeing a relative calm in the number of patients rather than an outbreak.
When it comes to preventing the spread, we are in favor of any idea that the government comes up with. "
How did you initiate the vaccination campaign?
" I kept telling the people of Magen Israel, "Bring as many vaccines as you can, and I will bring the people."
Today, 750 people are expected to be vaccinated - in addition to the many residents who were vaccinated privately at their HMO.
In terms of relative numbers, it's like 75,000 vaccinated in Jerusalem.
We try to bring in as many people as possible. "
Amir Hassidim notes that" Kiryat Ye'arim was chosen for the pilot because of the relatively high morbidity rate, and also because the head of the council is very active in the field and pushed for it.
The numbers really show a frightening picture of a very high morbidity rate.
Finally, there are three main pathogens: first, socioeconomic status, that is, the economic status of a family, several persons in a room, etc .;
Second, the behavior of the population, whether it is ultra-Orthodox, secular, Arab and so on.
Families of ultra-Orthodox and Arabs are large and live in small apartments, while the numbers of those infected are large anyway;
But there is a third factor that is ignored, and that is the age of the population.
The population in Kiryat Ya'arim, being an ultra-Orthodox locality, is very young: 40 percent of the residents are under the age of 18, which is an insane number - more than double that of the secular population.
"When you look at the morbidity rates here, it is very clear that most of the morbidity is concentrated at young ages. Therefore, in a locality where there are mostly young people, and where there is a high absolute number of patients, the best decision is to vaccinate all residents."
* * *
"Here in the community, too, there are people who are afraid of the vaccine," says Ravitz.
"All the conspiracies that the secular public wants have reached us as well, especially since a large part of the residents do not have internet.
" So instead of just phoning the council talking to the residents at eye level and dispelling the fears, we simply took on this operation the synagogue gabay, those who know their audience.
And we also issued a letter from the local rabbi calling on the residents to come to the vaccination operation.
"There are also guys from the community who study at various yeshivas around the country in capsules, according to the outline, and an order came out from the rabbis that those guys would come out of the yeshivas and come here to get vaccinated, and I don't have to explain how dramatic such teaching is.
"
All the employees of the departments - for example, the engineering department - work around the vaccination campaign, and mainly help people break down the concerns.
"For example, only in recent days has an order come, both from the authorities and the rabbis, to vaccinate pregnant women. There are a high number of pregnant women in Kiryat Ya'arim, and it was necessary to explain that the instruction is that they be vaccinated. The same goes for breastfeeding women. They wanted me to ask the medical advisor, Rabbi Firer, a Jew who sometimes takes a few days to catch him. And here we got him in five minutes yesterday, and he ordered breastfeeding women to go vaccinated as well.
"
Even now, even before the operation, we are 31 percent vaccinated and recovering, while currently in Bnei Brak, for example, the figure is 26 percent.
In the rate of vaccinators over the age of 60, we now stand at 93.1, compared to 58.3 in Bnei Brak. "
At the beginning of the epidemic in Israel, you led the table of patients.
"On Purim night, when it was still allowed to gather up to 5,000 people, a Purim meal was held here attended by 70 residents. There was someone there who two days before met a cousin from France, and got infected. That's where the infection started in the community, and it really spread. Patients, and the whole Ministry of Health was on its feet. But this incident lit the red light for us, that such a thing would not change here.
"Today there are almost no new patients here.
For each new patient we prepare a kit, after we check in the population registry what the ages are in the family, and sew for each family the appropriate package for it, with books, games, tutorials, etc.
This action, which sounds negligible, ultimately helps a family of nine or ten people, who are in solitary confinement, not want to violate it.
"Every day they get a call from the council representative: How are you? What do you need? And sometimes they really need, when the mother is in bed and the father is disabled. Then they get a hot and nutritious lunch to the door. The same if they need grocery shopping: they send us a list Shopping, and there is a team that does the shopping for them and brings it to their doorstep. "
There is a knock on the door.
Avromi, the 11-year-old son of the mayor, is standing in the doorway, bringing his father a hot meal prepared by mother Rebecca, President Reuven Rivlin's mother-in-law. The two are the parents of 12 children
. “We have queues on the phones, when each of us gets the phone to listen to the Hyder or school line, where the lessons are played.
There are also tests over the phone and we even did a 'End of Tractate' party, also by phone.
"" Do you understand? "Says his father," All the children of the settlement are in this situation.
They are at home because of the closure, climbing the walls.
That is why we distributed packages of toys and toys to the families, and special packages for the sick or isolated, so that they would not go crazy at home. "
* * *
One of the extraordinary steps taken in Kiryat Ya'arim was a voluntary closure.
There have been several such.
"The first voluntary closure began a week before the end of March, a week before the rest of the country and lasted until Lag B'Omer, 45 days," says Ravitz. "The settlement has two gates - one was completely locked, and the other had 24-hour security.
We only allowed residents to enter, Speaks entered only by prior arrangement.
"When I decided on the closure, I called the Harel police chief and informed him. He told me, 'The law is not on your side. If someone complains that they are not allowed to enter or leave, we will have to back him up.' But throughout these weeks there was not a single call to police. The entrance these days was like the shouting hill in the Golan Heights. Parents came from afar to meet the married children, and they shouted at each other on both sides of the sidewalk.
"These independent actions helped.
From April 2 to June 7, no new patients were registered in Kiryat Ye'arim.
The first synagogue in the country to close was here in Kiryat Yearim.
It is already closed on Esther's fast.
"Also in the current closure we closed the educational institutions four days before the rest of the country, under the direction of Rabbis Kanievsky and Edelstein. There were 31 new patients in the locality, 19 of them under the age of 14, and it was a red light. I turned to the Haredi district in the Ministry of Education and asked what to do. There is no general decision on closure, we can not order the closures of the institutions. "So I said, it is our responsibility to do that.
" I was in contact with the independent education (the body in charge of the ultra-Orthodox schools) because I needed their backing for this step.
And as mentioned, the rabbis also ordered us to close, due to the situation.
The final decision came in the middle of the school day, and we just asked the parents to come and pick up the kids.
This is a decision that has certainly prevented a greater spread and higher-than-expected morbidity.
By the way, we have here, even now, a 'closure upon closure': every weekend, from Thursday to Sunday morning, there is no entry for people outside the community.
"Look," he points at the computer screen.
"Let's take the data online. Today there were very few patients, only four, and all within the same family. I mean, there are no new patients. There is a decline. Of course, it is too early to rejoice, and everything can change. In the end, the cause of the disease here is much because of the children A child enters the house and infects the whole family in one moment, which can be 12 or 14 people.
"For example, there are families who in the previous wave had one son sick and no one became infected, and now another child fell ill and everyone became infected.
It may be related to the mutation, we identify a new behavior that was not in the previous wave.
"But like I said, we are on a downward trend. You can turn around and see: all the Talmud Torah and schools here are hermetically sealed, and no one is trying to play with it. There are almost no people from the Jerusalem faction here, certainly not as an organization. The Hassidic community has Talmud Torah here. And it is closed, too.
"We keep our guidelines one hundred percent, more than Tel Aviv and Raanana.
You will not find here on the promenade and on the street one person walking without a mask.
And evidence, the very low number of reports of the police on violations of guidelines in the locality. And it is not because the police do not enforce here, because traffic reports continued to be given as usual, but simply because there is no one to give reports on violations of guidelines. "
What happened in other ultra-Orthodox cities, such as Bnei Brak?
"In Bnei Brak, too, there are a few individuals who went on a rampage. We know how to analyze the pictures. There are 230,000 residents in Bnei Brak, and without knowing the cases individually, I tell you one hundred percent that this is a small handful of violators.
"
The size of Bnei Brak, as well as other large ultra-Orthodox cities, such as Beitar Illit, can give rise to such rioting margins.
We are not a large locality, so these margins do not exist.
In Bnei Brak, too, it is a matter of the margins of the margins, a few dozen individual violators and rioters, and each time the same people. "
* * *
I accompany Ravitz to the vaccination compound, a five-minute drive from the council building.
By 4 p.m., dozens of residents were already waiting at the entrance to the girls' school on the outskirts of the settlement, which had become a huge immunization clinic.
The refrigerated truck with the vaccines should arrive at any moment, and the waiters maintain a good atmosphere.
"Have you already selected a tail from the catalog?"
Says one of the council's aides to a friend who's waiting his turn to get vaccinated.
MDA teams are already here, organizing in four classrooms at the school, where the vaccinations will take place. The truck is delayed a bit, and meanwhile more and more people are arriving. Some prefer to wait at the entrance, so as not to be indoors.
"This is a great opportunity to end it," says Yaakov ( 37), waiting for his turn. "The settlement is full of ads calling for residents to come here to get vaccinated, you can not miss it, and you see, people have come." As
he speaks, a loud siren sounds from behind. The refrigerated truck is here. MDA personnel and the council chief's staff approach To the truck door, take out the precious treasure.
After they publish and count, the head of the council, Ravitz, also arrives and checks: "Have enough vaccines arrived? Have you checked?".
The count shows that indeed, all the vaccines arrived safely.
"I think it is the vaccine capital of the area," says Shira, 36, an ultra-Orthodox resident of the locality.
"Look around, not everyone here is anxious. Neve Ilan and the eight immediately came here as well. It's really a very big excitement, light at the end of the tunnel."
Ravitz looks around, pleased.
"The council is now blown up by the phones of those who want to get vaccinated," he smiles.
"See what's going on here and want to get there."
He himself received the second vaccine last week.
Young and old of all ages are waiting.
The vaccines enter the school, and in the next few minutes the operation begins like a moving film, quickly and efficiently.
In the evening, at the end of the first day of the operation, I ask Amir Hassidim how it was.
"Crazy success," he replies.
"There was not a single dose left. All those who pre-registered showed up and got vaccinated. It's an effort I'm proud to be a part of. I'm just volunteering, but being at an event like this in the eye of the storm is a privilege. It was exciting to see people coming, to see whole families getting vaccinated."
* * *
Two days later, on Wednesday evening, the council provided me with the latest data: as of the close of the issue, a total of about 100 of the residents over the age of 16 had not yet been vaccinated, and plans to initiate another intensive immunization day.
Or as one of the aides of the head of the council, Ravitz, explained to me: "Probably quite easily we will succeed in being the first settlement in the world where they have reached herd immunity."
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
