A Plea to Stop Attending Indoor Minyanim

This is really addressed to those over the age of 60 or those with underlying medical conditions who are at greater risk of poor outcomes should they be infected with Covid. But it's worthwhile for everyone to consider whether it's appropriate for them to be davening indoors and certainly to be encouraging the at-risk population to avoid indoor minyanim at all costs.

I have gotten the reputation among some of not taking Covid seriously, which is just not accurate. I try to come to conclusions based on what the data tells me, not on emotions or fear or personal experience. I’m certain that I also have biases as we all do. I am not a doctor but I firmly believe that the issue at hand here is not a medical one, but one of statistics and data. And this is an area that I am quite qualified to opine on.

We now have data from over 100 countries which have experienced different mixes of policies as it relates to masking, social distancing, shutdowns, schools and various other public policies. The data shows no significant statistical differences in ultimate outcomes after adjusting for demographics. Not in death rates per capita nor hospitalizations per capita. The reality is that for all of our efforts, there just isn’t a lot that can be done to prevent the ultimate spread, just the delay of that spread (as we are now seeing in a country like Israel vs a country like Sweden).

A vaccine that is accepted and stops the spread is far from certain and may even be unlikely (despite what the President says). Remember, we've had a vaccine for the Flu for decades and tens of thousands of people die from the flu on average every year in the US alone. When all is said and done, it’s likely that each person on the planet will have either proven to have been immune from Covid or will end up getting the virus. That is what most scientists believe happened with the Spanish flu 100 years ago and most pandemics before it. This is just a once in a century pandemic that for all the advancements we have made in modern day medicine, we just can't yet prevent from taking its natural course.

However, that doesn’t mean that everyone should be rushing to get infected. Just like the medical community has learned a lot about the virus since March and we know how to treat it a lot better now, we will continue to make progress and better to delay the spread if possible. Some who unfortunately passed away several months ago would have a lot better chance of survival if they were infected today and in all likelihood the odds will only get better as time goes on.

As I stated in my original piece, that doesn't mean that we should be doing anything and everything to prevent the spread. Do I believe that we should be "torturing" children? No. Shutting down our economy? Absolutely not. Those actions have severe ramifications (including resulting in other deaths) that far outweigh any small benefit we would get from taking those actions. But for older people on an individual basis to be cautious and postpone the day in which they inevitably contract the virus makes a lot of sense as long as it doesn't disrupt the lives of others.

Therefore, it’s disturbing to see that we have lulled ourselves into thinking that it’s safe to congregate if we are masked, despite very flimsy evidence that anything other than high quality surgical masks or N95s (properly worn) do much of anything to prevent spread (see the guest blog post from yesterday - https://gershondistenfeld.blogspot.com/2020/10/unmasking-science-of-masks.html). What does make a HUGE difference which has been proven in studies (and empirically) is being indoors vs outdoors when congregating. Even the CDC admits that in the case of being in “close contact” with someone who is infected (defined as 15 minutes), whether or not masks were worn is irrelevant in transmission.

If you want anecdotal evidence, over the past few weeks, there have been many cases of spread in Shuls in the tri-state area. To my knowledge, very few (if any) in outdoor minyanim, despite there being more outdoor minyanim and the majority of them are unmasked (yes, our community is an outlier here) and almost all indoor minyanim are masked.

So I ask you - why are we still having indoor minyanim? Or at the very least, why are any of YOU attending them? If we are putting all of these restrictions on our children out of an “abundance of caution” because they might spread it to adults, how in the world are we allowing said adults to directly expose themselves to the virus by being with others in an enclosed space? It just doesn’t make any sense!

At the very least, I would like to see our Shuls prohibit or at least strongly discourage our seniors from attending indoor minyanim. Shutting down all indoor minyanim - especially now when the weather is still conducive to outdoor minyanim - is probably the more prudent way to go. I have brought this to the attention of community leaders, but as of yet have not yet made any progress. 

So I am pleading with everyone reading this, especially if you are among the senior or otherwise vulnerable populations. Out of an abundance of caution, please only attend outdoor minyanim until it is once again safe to return indoors!

May Hashem make that day happen soon and remove all sickness from among us.