Cape Town may have Rosh Hashanah in shul

JORDAN MOSHE

That’s one of the main questions being asked by members of the community who are grappling with the chief rabbi’s decision to keep shuls closed until further notice to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

On Sunday night, Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein; virologist Professor Barry Schoub; Richard Friedland, the chief executive of Netcare; and Professor Efraim Kramer, an expert in emergency medicine, addressed questions from the community about the situation.

Friedland couldn’t say whether shuls would be open for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but said decisions would probably be made on a case-by-case basis.

“One has to look at this on a provincial basis,” he said. “If you look at Cape Town, the way the curve is developing shows that recoveries are actually exceeding the number of active cases. It was the first to experience the pandemic, and it should come out of it in July with a good recovery in August.

“By 19 September [Rosh Hashanah], it should be in a position to get back to services.

“Our biggest caveat is the concern about interprovincial travel. Once reintroduced, we may see the virus inadvertently spreading between provinces, a grave concern for the Western Cape.”

As for the other provinces, Friedland believes that the Eastern Cape will recover in late July or August, whereas Gauteng may have to wait a little longer.

“The next seven days in Gauteng will determine when we will be able to look at recovery,” he said. “It depends on whether we’re peaking now, or whether we will see more cases in coming days.”

Said Schoub, “There’s a dangerous misperception that the disease is coming under control because restrictions are being lifted. As restrictions are easing, you can see that people believe that things are back to normal. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Jewish communities across the globe have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, Schoub said. In the United Kingdom, where Jews comprise 0.3% of the population, they account for 1.7% of the mortality rate. In France, Jews account for 0.8% of the population but make up 5.0% of virus-related deaths.

Although we can speculate about the reasons for this, one of the factors which contributes to the rate of infection among Jews is our religious way of life and practices, especially where shuls are concerned. Schoub said many outbreaks occurred across the world in houses of worship, with people coming into a confined space and rapidly spreading the virus.

The frequency with which we visit shul, the social element of shul attendance, even the singing which typifies a shul service are among the possible reasons for greater risk of spreading the virus, said Schoub. “There’s no proof for any of them as such, but based on data from Israel, it’s clear that shuls are a hub for transmission,” he said.

Community members questioned the sense of opening Jewish schools but not shuls.

“Classroom transmission actually accounts for a very small proportion of overall transmission,” said Schoub. “Studies in many countries have shown that during the epidemic, whether schools opened or not, there was no case increase or decrease either way.”

There were many possible reasons for this.

“Children don’t get the infection seriously or at all in most cases,” said Schoub. “From an epidemic perspective, they are poor transmitters of the virus, for a number of physiological reasons.”

He explained that where children are concerned, the safest place for them is school.

“When holidays occur, the infection in children increases. This is mostly not from school, but from a household or non-school context. We may feel concern for adult teachers and staff, but their risk is no more than adults going to workplaces, and is perhaps even less because they’re amongst children.”

Community members also expressed concern about a second wave of infections, a threat which Friedland believes we should take seriously.

“It’s very worrying if we lessen our guard,” he said. “The United States celebrated success over the first wave, but is seeing large second waves far worse than the initial one. In our post-lockdown euphoria, we lessen our guard, but we need to be as vigilant in post-lockdown as we were at the start.

“People are asking why we will still peak after having been in lockdown. We are in a paradoxical situation where our government was forced to relax lockdown for socio-economic reasons, and a real concern about law and order. In truth, if South Africa were wealthier, we should have remained in lockdown until our peak.”

There is cause for optimism, however. The experts said major strides were being made in treatment, and in the development of the coronavirus vaccine, offering a glimmer of hope.

“There’s a tremendous amount of energy, finance, and research being put into the vaccine,” said Schoub. It normally takes four to five years, sometimes even longer, but the rate of development for the COVID-19 vaccine is far more rapid.”

There are about 160 candidate vaccines being evaluated, 15 of which are already in human-trial stage, and two of which are already in the third phase of testing.

“There is no way we will have it this year,” said Schoub. “However, we can expect it next year. It’s not just about finding it, but also making it universally available and cost-effective.”

While the cure remains elusive, developments in treatment are worth celebrating.

“We’ve had time to learn what works and what doesn’t,” said Friedland. “Our treatment is becoming more effective. People are staying for less time in intensive care, not everyone needs to be intubated, and we’re hoping to reduce the mortality rate.

“We are seeing the critical role of general practitioners in keeping people out of hospital and monitoring them at home. We believe that treatments will improve and become more efficacious,” Friedland said.