"A lockdown isn't a plan, it's an admission of failure," Lapid said.
By GIL HOFFMANYair Lapid(photo credit: ELAD GUTMAN)
The lockdown which the government has decided upon is a disaster, opposition leader Yair Lapid told his Yesh Atid-Telem faction in the Knesset on Monday.Lapid warned that a lockdown would kill businesses that have only just recovered."A lockdown isn't a plan, it's an admission of failure," he said. "Netanyahu failed, this government failed and now they want us to pay the price. More people will die during a lockdown from suicide and heart attacks than coronavirus."Lapid noted that Israel currently has 144 people on ventilators, and said that for 144 people the economy of an entire country should not be closed down. He said there is a forecast that 85,000 businesses will close this year, which he said was the worst in the world."What's the logic of closing down places of work that have prepared for working alongside the virus, made all the arrangements and are working according to the regulations?" he asked. "Why close a café in a small green town where people sit in small capsules in the open air? Why can ten strangers pray together but ten family members not eat together during the holidays? What's the sense in closing the hotels in Israel and telling people to go to hotels in Greece?"Lapid said there is no other country that is doing a second lockdown."The world has learned how to deal with the coronavirus and understands that lockdowns aren't the solution," he said. Even if the infection rate drops for a few weeks, it will spike again after another few weeks. Instead of shutting everyone in their homes, they should focus on the risk groups. The elderly and those with background illnesses, lockdown only red cities, increase enforcement in red cities even if a few politicians will shout about it."Lapid said instead of throwing away billions of shekels on a lockdown, Israel should take half of that money and invest it in the healthcare system."Of all the options, a lockdown is the worst of them all," he said. "So of course this government has taken the worst decision and we'll all pay the price."
There's a tradition that opposition factions don't propose no-confidence motions in the government when the Prime Minister is abroad. MK Moshe Ya'alon said his faction did it anyway because the PM abandoned the country during a crisis when he could have sent his Foreign Minister or Alternate Prime Minister to sign the UAE deal in DC.
