Yoram Lass
Yoram LassAloni Mor

Arutz Sheva spoke to Former Health Ministry Director Professor Yoram Lass, who has been outspoken and unembarrassed in his criticism of Health Ministry COVID-19 policy.

Professor Lass does not suggest that minor errors have been made in determining Israeli mitigation policy, rather he says the Health Ministry is disseminating completely erroneous data; there is no "excess mortality" in Israel, no plague, and, as a rule, the so-called "dead because of coronavirus" did not die from coronavirus.

Everyone was concerned during the opening days and weeks of this crisis, after hearing projections by experts that predicted millions of deaths, and seeing images from China, with people falling on the ground in mid-stride and dying in the streets.

At one point however, some experts began to be skeptical. Did you personally experience such a shift, and if so, when, and what was the cause?

"Even in the early days of the coronavirus epidemic back in January 2020, I was looking at the data - not at the pictures - at the data from China. I knew that on a monthly basis - every month - one million Chinese approximately died every month. And the numbers coming out of the coronavirus epidemic were so small.

"Up to this point - and I believe the data - up to this point, less than five thousand Chinese people died from the coronavirus. Which is negligible; there is no plague. There is not even an 'event' in China.

"The same in Japan, where we have one-hundred-twenty-million people, and about one thousand people 'dying from coronavirus', and they did not die from coronavirus; they died from old age, cancer, heart attack, and so on.

"So, from the early days I knew there is no epidemic in eastern Asia. There is no epidemic in the Middle East. There is an epidemic event in western Europe and in the United States, which is comparable to a very severe influenza epidemic, that's all. So the world destruction is not justified."

People find it hard to believe that the entire government apparatus of experts and dedicated civil servants could get it so wrong with something so big. Is there a way to explain this?

"What we have is a pandemic psychosis. And the pandemic psychoses virus are the new means of communication, namely, the social networks which never existed before in previous viral pandemics; that's the answer.

"People and governments are out of their minds. They see horror pictures. And the horror picture - which is true for a certain moment, a certain date, a certain location, but has nothing to do with the real picture - they look at these pictures and immediately it becomes a policy.

"So this is my answer: People, including governments, are out of their minds. And look at the situation in Sweden, who remained calm, rational, and look at the situation in Belgium, where they had this severe lockdown. Twice as many dead people in Belgium, if you compare Belgium to Sweden - twice as many - with severe lockdown."

In May, Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared on a video of the Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Event, calling for quote, “better diagnostics, treatments, and a safe and effective vaccine”. He joined a long list of world leaders reading an identical script.

Just this week, the Health Ministry admitted that cause of death for anyone in Israel is determined by the practitioner in charge according to World Health Organization guidelines. Therefore, any COVID-19-positive patient who died during hospitalization will likely be reported as COVID-19 death. Are Israeli policymakers independent?

"Israeli policymakers follow the directions of the World Health Organization, which are absolutely wrong.

"According to WHO, if people die from cancer, from old age, from coronary heart disease, even from a road accident - if incidentally you have a positive coronavirus test, policymakers are obliged, according to the WHO, to write down 'coronavirus' as the cause of death, which is insane, and which is part of the insanity and the wrong numbers which are being currently published by governments around the world."