A. Did Dr. Fauci say that vaccination rates for measles were low in the Jewish community in Rockland, or in the Jewish schools there? Because measles vaccination is given before children are school age.
So, if vaccination by age 4 was found to be in the 95% range (it’s not, more later), that does not mean that community wide vaccination with measles was at a sufficient level.
So, Fauci didn’t lie.
B. Although reported measles cases peaked at 1,200 in New York, thousands more went unreported in both Williamsburg and Rockland County. Children don’t get the measles if they’re vaccinated.
So, Fauci didn’t lie.
C. Accurate school immunization rates in Rockland County for the measles in 2019 was 77%.
So, Fauci didn’t lie.
D. Falsely accusing Fauci of a false accusation is ironic, but it’s also not a great idea to foster mistrust of one of best leadership we have during this pandemic.
E. “Dr. Fauci should have relied on actual and relevant public data and not on media reports.”
Dr. Fauci’s suggestion about low measles immunization rates is based on this public health data:
Rising to tackle anti-Semitic reporting is important.
But it needs to be based on actual and relevant public data.
I will start sharing resources on the COVID vaccine, as I come across them. Every resource is one that I have vetted.
It is incumbent upon everyone to do their due diligence: read, watch, learn. Do what you must to feel comfortable getting the COVID vaccine to end this
pandemic and the loss of human lives.
It’s not acceptable, during this time particularly, to read a snippet or screenshot or meme or unverified information and make a decision based off that. It is even less acceptable to share misinformation. It will kill.
Here’s your first resource: a 28-minute video on the Pfizer vaccine data.
My client died on Friday night. As an end-of-life provider in my community, I help Orthodox Jewish people die without suffering, and according to Jewish law.
When the family begged me for a timeline weeks ago, I predicted (with the caveat that only God knows) that he’d live
until just after Sukkos. But he progressed rapidly at the end of the week and I wasn’t surprised to receive a call on Friday night. His son called, afraid, that his father didn’t look well at all.
“His oxygen is 72% and he’s on 5 liters,” he said. “And he’s breathing quickly.”
I told him to turn on a timer and count his breaths for 1 minute.
I listened, noting that he counted a breath per second, over 3 times the normal breathing rate.
Someone sent me this responsa from R’ Asher Weiss to a young nurse, who had to use old respirators and accidentally applied it wrongly, resulting in the patient’s death. She wrote to him, asking how to atone for killing a patient.
His response made me cry, made my colleagues
cry. To providers who worked through the surge, who ran into infectious disease wards instead of away from them, these words are the most comforting ones I have read recently.
People who lost loved ones, or had hospital stays which were terrible experiences, have accused
us of killing patients, ignoring them, not feeding them, keeping them isolated.
You know nothing. You don’t know the conditions we worked in: surges of patients lining hallways, staff out sick or scared to work, no PPE, and no clue how to treat this disease.
This morning I am sitting at work in numb silence. What happened in my neighborhood last night was painful and unacceptable, and 100% preventable.
A thread.
The choice to see the Governor's words as an attack on religious freedom led many to argue that the treatment of our neighborhoods and zip codes was based on "picking on" the Jews, "anti-semitism," "reminiscient of the Holocaust."
The alt choice would have been to unite the community with safe public health behaviors.
Two rules: wear masks, avoid crowds. That’s all.
It is no secret that from May-Sept my community failed to follow these rules.
Many felt the disease had run its course in our streets.
Make no mistake, what is about to happen in the ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn will be catastrophic. School closures, business closures, synagogue closures and fines to everyone will rock the community and pain them - WITHOUT FIXING THE PROBLEM.
I am all for punitive responses and mandates and fines, but only after an effective, community-centered approach towards education and participation. This has not happened. This hasn’t even pretended to happen.
Instead, clueless methods to improve mask wearing and social distancing were implemented - 2 days ago - and now there are threads to attack the community from all sides by early next week. 3/