Modi'in Mayor Haim Bibas, who also serves as head of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel, wants the coronavirus crisis in Israel to be handled at the city or local authority level, with each town or city setting up its own "war room," Israel Hayom has learned.
"Dear friends, we need to set up 'war rooms' and handle this ourselves. Bureaucracy is killing us," Bibas said in correspondence with his counterparts in local government.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Bibas and many other local authority leaders are voicing criticism of how the Health Ministry has handled the corona epidemic. They want to bypass the ministry and are even willing to risk lawsuits in order to wage war on the disease at the local level.
Bibas is considered a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a strong mayor. He broached the issue in a WhatsApp group for local authority leaders, saying that given the many problems in the government's handling of the corona crisis, he had set up an independent "war room" in Modi'in. The Modi'in project collects epidemiological information about confirmed corona cases and warns residents who came into contact with them, based on that data.
"From my personal experience in the city [of Modi'in]: Only after I set up the independent war room did we manage to reach all the confirmed cases and isolate anyone who came into contact with them, thereby saving a lot of others," Bibas wrote.
The Modi'in mayor voiced harsh criticism of government functionaries, writing, "I thought that an emergency situation would take precedence over the bureaucracy that kills. But as usual, I was wrong … now is the time to do what I did. Set up a war room to track the sick, send residents to self-isolate, and handle it ourselves!"
By law, the names of corona patients may not be made public, and cities not dot have the authority to collect that information or make it public. Bibas stressed that the action he was taking was based on "social responsibility, anonymously."
"Sick residents write down where they were [prior to quarantine] to save others' lives," he explained.
At a later point in the conversation, he said to another mayor that it was not necessary to publish each patients' epidemiology: "You just need to update those around them, so they can self-isolate."
To facilitate Bibas' idea, the chief of staff for the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel Yaron Doron Levi has formulated a template for use by other mayors and local authority leaders.
"There is no need to identify [the patients], only for solidarity to contain spread in the community and the country as a whole, with the goal being to discuss a return to routine after Passover," Levi wrote.
The participants in the Whatsapp conversation approved of Bibas' idea.
Eli Eskozio, head of the Nahal Sorek Regional Council, wrote, "This is what we need to do. Good for you."
Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi added, "That's what I did, too. Once again we're seeing that what doesn't work in normal times won't work in an emergency."
Nir Bartal, head of the Oranit Local Authority, wrote, "The Health Ministry is even giving the public mistaken information," citing five-hour discrepancies between the epidemiology for each patient published by the ministry and the true breakdown of where patients were and when.
Head of the Binyamin Local Council Yisrael Gantz said that he had opened an independent war room as soon as the epidemic began, but said that it had not stopped the Health Ministry from "telling me that if I published patients' 'routes,' even with their explicit agreement, and everything was correct -- we would be opening ourselves up to a lawsuit."
Haifa Mayor Einat Kalish Rotem took a more stringent position, arguing that "Everyone needs to self-isolate, apart from a small percentage [of the population] who need to be out in the field. Support the quarantined with food and medicine."
Rotem added that "Our ability to track the virus is slippery, without authority, with limited enforcement capability, and limited manpower that could grow even smaller."
"Rather than catching potential carriers in retrospect, we need to prevent infection ahead of time. Therefore … curfew! With stringent enforcement. Shelter-at-home isn't enough," she wrote.
According to Bibas, "the new directives don't allow us to handle the situation properly. I regret that because of the bureaucracy this crisis isn't being handled as best it could, and therefore I suggested to my local authority leader colleagues to initiate a voluntary process, in accordance with the law, based on residents' willingness to provide details about where and when they were in order to contain the spread of corona."
