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Nearly entire extended Israeli family gets virus after breaking Passover regs

Of the family which gathered in defiance of curfew restrictions, 13 of 16 were infected with Covid-19.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

An extended family who gathered together for Passover in violation of a national curfew was exposed to the coronavirus and 13 of the 16 people present were infected, including a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, Ynet reported Thursday.

The members of the religious family in the southern town of Netivot were used to seeing each other daily and failed to heed health restrictions that only the immediate nuclear family be present for the traditional Seder meal that starts the holiday.

Facing the danger of an explosive infection rate, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown April 8 for Passover in a targeted move to stop millions of Israelis from gathering for the traditional Seder meal that marks the start of the week-long Passover holiday.

The health ministry had distributed guidelines for the holiday with specific instructions that for the Seder evening, “everyone in their own house with immediate family only.”

Of the 15 residents infected on the same street in Netivot, some 75 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, most were from the same family. Municipality officials said two families in the town chose to celebrate Passover together with guests.

“The epidemiological investigation revealed that no guidelines were being followed. The children in the building were playing together,” a health ministry statement said.

Most of the infected family members were moved to a quarantine hotel in the nearby city of Ashkelon.

“People don’t always understand the meaning of things,” a family member told Ynet. “There is nothing like being healthy at home.”

The family apparently had heard of the regulations, but did not take them to heart owing to the members of the extended family being in almost daily contact before the holiday.

“If we knew how dangerous it was, we wouldn’t come on the holiday,” the unnamed family member said.

A next-door neighbor identified only as “A” said earlier this week two ambulances evacuated all the extended family members, including a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy and small children to the hotel. She said only the father of the family and one of the boys remained in home isolation.

“Sixteen people were there on Passover – and everyone was infected except three,” she said. “The neighbors from above who were in contact with us went into isolation. We, thankfully, kept the guidelines and did not leave the house.”

“A” said her neighbor admitted that inviting the family for the holiday was a mistake. “She didn’t think it was going to happen.”