STOP THE MINYANIM: Respected Frum Doctor In Queens Writes Open Letter

(Dr Bennett is a Board Certified Emergency Room Physician, NY Hospital of Queens, and also private practice in Queens)

This is Ellie Bennett.

You all know who I am and where I work. I just feel that I have to go on record.

It is my medical opinion, and the same of all the infectious disease experts, that these minyamin are going to kill people. I know it is very difficult for you all to understand it because it seems like an innocuous gathering of 15 to 20 people. I will happily take any of you on a 5-minute tour of what is going on in my hospital right now.

As of this past Thursday we had seven patients sick enough to be admitted. As of yesterday it was 30 and as of today it’s 50. Elderly people from our neighborhood are on ventilators in the ICU because of these minyanim.

There’s a 6:00AM minyan, followed by 7:00AM followed by 8:00AM followed by 9:00AM Minyan. Even if only 25 people come to each, that’s a hundred people in the same room in the same morning.

Statistically, you guys are going to kill at least one old person every time you guys meet.

You all trust me to treat you like family when you come to my office, so I’m speaking to you like family. Stop the minyan. Stop the gatherings. Stay home and pray by yourself. Have in mind the EMTs and paramedics and doctors and nurses working in the hospitals who are working under ridiculous conditions trying to save as many people as we can. I admit, there will not be thousands of deaths in Kew Gardens Hills (Queens). But are we really willing to accept that 1 out of 100 people in our neighborhood will die? I am not.

We trust doctors whether or not to eat on Yom Kippur or when to make a bris.

Why all of a sudden do you think it’s appropriate to ignore us?

Have a good day and good luck to us all.

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