Dr. Daniel Roth: What you should be doing right now

Submitted by Dr. Roth: As a frum doctor, I am sending this text to help people know what I believe people should be doing RIGHT NOW, based on halacha and on standard medical practice. These guidelines will protect yourselves, your families, the rest of our community, and will SAVE LIVES.

If YOU practice these guidelines, you will be fulfilling your responsibility as a member of the klal. Every single person who follows these guidelines might actually be saving a life, even if others do not follow these guidelines. The fewer people the virus can reach, the fewer people it can infect and the fewer people it can be transmitted to.

I believe it is the responsibility of every man, woman, and child to stay at home as much as humanly possible, without contact with other people. This is because everyone can spread this deadly virus, even if you are not sick now.

If every family stays in their homes, the virus will starve and die. The virus needs human hosts to live. If people are not in contact with each other, the virus will die faster, because it will have nowhere to go.
Children should not play with neighbors.

No child should be in school or daycare.

Men should not go to minyan.

Learning should be over the phone or on teleconference.

Work should be over the phone or on teleconference.

Grocery shopping for necessary food should be ordered over the phone and delivered to your home.

Daven, daven, daven.

Also endorsed by:
Dr. Jonathan Cohen
Dr. Alan Lempel
Dr. David Ogun
Dr. Neil Gittelman
Dr. Nachum Indich
Dr. Chaim Kaweblum
Dr. Harvey Hirsch
Dr. Jonathan Fisgus
Dr. Binyomin Greenberg

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Very confused as all the shills are still packed no clear guidelines from state officials if this is so serious and deadly why not enforce a curfew immediately and why wait untill Wednesday?. If this is so serious why allow less than 50 people to congregate?

    • Seriously? do you need an armed guard outside your house too? does everything in life need to be enforced by the goverment for people to take things seriously?

  2. @muti Klein
    I beleive what Dr. Roth and the other doctors are stating the ideal.
    The government on the other hand even with all the extreme measures being put in place is willing to put up with a certain amount of deaths so people can have some semblance of normalcy. Their primary focus is not to overwhelm the health care system. Otherwise, the numbers will be astronomical. Sort of like war time or terror, any government is willing to put up with a certain amount before they surrender.
    I’m not convinced that the toll we are facing in the long term future (think unemployment = suicides, family break ups etc.) Is worth the extreme measures we are taking.
    Hashem should continue to watch over all of us.

  3. will due respect to dr roth he is a ophthalmologist and a retina specialist not a infectious disease specialist , and he should leave halacha ie davening with a minyan or not to rabonim

  4. We all know that shutting everything down will stop the spread of the virus. We also know that lowering all the speed limits will save lives. We don’t lower the speed limit because we use solutions proportionate to the problem. We don’t need to nuke the problem, especially if nuking the problem will create more problems. We heard enough opinions, now it’s time to give us facts of who is really at risk and come up with a solution to protect those at risk. If the facts suggest that everyone is at risk then by all means shut everything down, but we haven’t been told the facts yet.

  5. Thank you thank you to Dr Roth and to all these Doctors for coming out and taking the lead on actions that will hopefully spare our community and ultimately save lives! Unfortunately there has been some glaring lack of leadership too.
    I implore upon everyone to review the Halachos of a sick person on Yom Kippur (סי’ תריח). The Shulchan Aruch states very clearly that Sofek Nefashos Lehakel and that we must listen to the expert recommendations of 2 Doctors who tell the person to eat, even against the opinion of 100 others. Wouldn’t that apply here too?
    If we don’t take action now who knows what we’ll bring upon ourselves comes Pesach season. No one wants to be in quarantine then, but we don’t want to leave the grand-parents behind neither.
    May Hashem watch over all of us. Besuros Tovos Bekarov.

  6. I hear the logic of “starving the virus”
    but I don’t think that the humble Dr’s took into account reality.
    Do you realize that many people live in apartments (be it basement, or building) in a 2 or 3 bedroom with 6 kids?
    Do you really think they can be locked up in that cell for months?

    Do you realize that by closing school for millions of kids, especially teenagers/collage, will lead to much gang activity, crime etc.

    Do you realize that millions of people with no saving will be out of work, be it because their employer was forced to close, or they need to watch their kids that are home from school? how will they feed their kids? can also lead to more crime.

    so, its easy to say, close everything NOW when you have it comfortable. the Gov has to take all the repercussions into account.

    I would have thought it better to quarantine all the people that are in danger and let everyone else function.

    but I don’t have all the facts…

  7. It is a great opinion and I am sure many agree with him. However many Gedolim in America and Eretz Yisroel including the Gadul Hador R Chaim Kanievsky does not seem to agree with him regarding Minyan. As with every matter in Klal Yisroel, consult your Rov and stick with Daas Torah.

  8. I honestly cannot fathom the attitude amongst so many on here. Do you not see what is happening around the world? Do you not see thousands of dead in Italy which has a very high standard of heathcare? Do you not realise what will c”v happen if you don’t change your attitudes extremely quickly? Are you so selfish as to only care about yourselves but not the tens of thousands of elderly and immunocompromised in our community? You don’t need to hear from every doctor or for them to “prove” cases. This is here and our community is in a uniquely bad position as far as controlling spread. It’s attitudes like I see on here which give me a certain sense of hopelessness. What will it take chalila for everyone to wake up from their comfortable slumber?
    Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

  9. Dr roth is a eye surgeon he shouldn’t be writing about viruses
    And keep halacha to the real rabbonim and not let every knaker to say his opinions

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