Board President urges vaccination as communal death toll reaches 955

Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl has urged all those who can to book a booster jab.

She said: “It is now clear that the Omicron variant is highly transmissible and all those who can book a jab must do so. The Board of Deputies is in contact with Government on a daily basis. To protect lives and to protect our way of life, we all need to get the vaccinations for which we are eligible.”

Marie’s plea comes as the number of those who in the Jewish community have lost their lives to Covid-19 has increased by one in the last week to reach 955.

Working with the Jewish community’s burial boards, regional Jewish communities and the Jewish Small Communities Network, as of the week ending 10th December 2021, there have been 955 Jewish funerals carried out where the deceased contracted Covid-19. There has been 1 funeral in the Jewish community where the deceased contracted Covid-19 reported to the Board of Deputies in the last week.

We wish bereaved families a long life, and pray that the memory of their loved ones should be for a blessing.

The Board of Deputies is liaising with seven of the largest denominational burial boards to collate an indicator of deaths where Covid-19 was a factor. These denominational burial boards are: The Adath Yisroel Burial Society, the Federation of Synagogues Burial Society, the Joint Jewish Burial Board, Liberal Judaism, the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi Community, the United Synagogue Burial Society and the Western Charitable Foundation. The Board of Deputies has either received reports from the following regional communities, or has accounted for them through the largest denominational burial boards where they cover that particular community: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bognor Regis, Bournemouth, Brighton and Hove, Canvey Island, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Cornwall, Darlington, Eastbourne, Edinburgh, Exeter, Gateshead, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Solihull, Southend, Southport, St Annes, Stoke on Trent and Swansea. The indicator enumerates how many funerals were carried out by these burial societies and communities where COVID-19 appeared on the death certificate of the deceased. As such it covers both deaths in hospitals and in the wider community. When making comparisons of data, please note that data separate to this indicator may not have similar parameters. Please do not take successive figures as indicative of exact trend as smaller communities cannot report weekly.

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