Coronavirus Death Toll in Israel Rises to 3
by Benjamin Kerstein
An 87-year-old man has become Israel’s third coronavirus fatality, the news site N12 reported on Tuesday.
Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem stated that the man had been admitted on Monday with difficulty breathing and had deteriorated rapidly.
He reportedly had several preexisting conditions — including diabetes and dementia — and had suffered a recent stroke.
He was the second resident of the Migdal Nof nursing home in Jerusalem to die of coronavirus.
Israel’s second fatality was identified late Tuesday as Malka Keva, 67, of Bat Yam. She also had preexisting condition, and she died at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon earlier in the day.
Her daughter Dorit told N12 that her mother was being treated for cancer and likely contracted the coronavirus from a nurse on the hospital staff who was currently under quarantine.
“To all the public who go out and still don’t worry about the disease — stay home,” she said. “Don’t go out. You are endangering yourself, your children, your relatives, and people you don’t even know.”
“We are hurting, we are sad,” Dorit said. “The biggest absurdity is that we were not there, we could not be there, we could not hold her hand and say, ‘Fight.’ There was no one to say goodbye to her.”
“Some of us are unable to attend her funeral,” she added. “My dad and brother who were positive for corona can’t go to her funeral. I’m negative for corona and I will go and accompany her, but her husband and son can’t. People, wake up.”
The first Israeli to die of the disease — 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even of Jerusalem — passed away last Friday.