Former Health Ministry chief Prof. Yoram Lass says governments can’t halt viruses and the lockdown will kill more people from depression than the virus.
Former Ministry of Health director-general Prof. Yoram Lass has been regularly interviewed by the Israeli media since the coronavirus outbreak first started. But in contrast to the prophets of doom and deep concern shown by most medical professionals, he has presented a somewhat different and controversial opinion.
Prof. Lass feels that it is wrong to shut down the entire country because of a virus that is ultimately less of a killer than the flu. In other words, he is saying that taking into account the cost benefits, it is preferable ‘to sacrifice’ the elderly so that daily life can go on as normal. This is an outlook that has antagonized many and has made him a ‘persona non grata’ in the TV interview studios.
Lass is at peace with himself over all this and with the voices calling him ‘deluded.” “I didn’t invite myself to the studios,” he told “Globes,” “and I’m prepared to give my opinion to everybody who is ready to listen.”
Do you think you are being excluded because you presented an unpopular position?
“I can tell you that several days ago I heard with my own ears, after I was interviewed on the radio by Nissim Mishal, the deputy director of the Ministry of Health Prof. Itamar Grotto tell Mishal that I shouldn’t be brought into studios. And last Friday, I was invited to the studio by Ayala Hasson.
Some three days beforehand, they called me and ask not to go anywhere else, and then the day before they cancelled. And who did they replace me with on the program? The futurist David Passig, who told the people of Israel that in the best case scenario 40 million people would die, and in the worst case scenario 300 million people would die. That shows you how the media is only trumpeting hysteria. Because it was clear that if I was sitting next to him, I would only have told an amazed Israeli people that every year 17,000 Italians die of flu while in Israel only 126 dies of flue last year.
What does that mean?
“Italy is known for its enormous morbidity in respiratory problems, more than three times any other European country. In the US about 40,000 people die in a regular flu season and so far 40-50 people have died of the coronavirus, most of them in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.”
Hadas Magen – Globes – March 22, 2020.
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