The accelerated increase in coronavirus infections in Israel is extremely troubling, even if predictable due to the easing of restrictions, the opening of schools, public transportation, and more. The Corona National Information and Knowledge Center, operated by the Health Ministry and IDF, clearly illustrated the severity of the situation on Saturday.
The Health Ministry and government must take urgent steps to prepare for another outbreak. These steps should incorporate the lessons learned from the previous outbreak, and should already have been implemented. If the Health Ministry doesn't carry them out urgently and vigorously, and if the government doesn't back these steps up financially, it will be a fiasco of severe proportions when the country is hit by a second wave.
On Friday, officials in the Health Ministry told Israel Hayom there was a critical shortage of 170 nurses in the public health clinics. These nurses are supposed to quickly and professionally test and question coronavirus patients to determine who among their contacts should also be put into quarantine, with the goal of mitigating the spread of the virus to the greatest possible degree. Following the report, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein promptly announced that his ministry would bolster the ranks as early as this week, but that the critical lack in manpower was known to the ministry's directors and is the result of the defunding of public healthcare services over a span of many years.
According to the ministry's figures, almost half of the nearly 300 coronavirus deaths in Israel were residents of nursing homes and hospices. The ministries of health and welfare failed miserably in their handling of these institutions, along with some of their direct managers, who acted insufficiently. There is now an urgent need to further expedite the supervision and help the government must give these institutions; the IDF Home Front Command should be ordered to aid them again.
Indeed, an umbrella group of nursing homes in Israel on Friday told Prof. Nimrod Maimon, who runs the Health Ministry's program for dealing with retirement homes, that none of the approximately 6,500 residents under its supervision had contracted the coronavirus. According to a document presented to Maimon, this significant achievement was made possible by the rigorous actions taken by the homes themselves even before the Health Ministry issued its instruction. For example: testing workers for the virus before being allowed to enter the premises. Every nursing home in the country must implement similar measures to protect this vulnerable population as much as possible.
Additionally, the Health Ministry must swiftly improve the manner in which pertinent information is transmitted and made accessible to the public, which is so crucial to fighting the pandemic and persuading citizens to heed the ministry's directives. A week ago, the Corona National Information and Knowledge Center told us there were already 30 additional patients in critical condition since the beginning of June.
However, all attempts to receive confirmation of these figures from Health Ministry leaders – Prof. Sigal Sadetsky, Head of Public Health Services; Deputy-Director Prof. Itamar Grotto; and the ministry's spokesperson – were either ignored or deemed useless responses. Frighteningly, this is basic and critical information about the spread of the virus that is much needed at a time when the public is already exhibiting disconcerting signs of mistrust in the Health Ministry – which might only exacerbate the infection rate.
