The decision to use Shin Bet tools to track families of COVID carriers was made after the IDF Home Front Command was astonished to find that some 30% of virus carriers either refused to cooperate with contact tracers or reported that they had "no" contact with anyone else in the days prior to testing positive.

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Deeming those numbers unlikely, the Home Front Command and the Shin Bet began cooperating on Tuesday to locate and test all these carriers' immediate family members.

The personal details of COVID carriers defined as having reported suspect information will be sent to the Health Ministry to be checked, and if there is reasonable suspicion that the carriers were in contact with relatives, the Shin Bet will step in to clarify their status.

The method being employed is classified and is different from the cell phone tracking authorized by the government thus far.

If family members of COVID carriers are located, they will be contacted by text message, instructed to quarantine themselves, and be tested for the virus.

The new steps to overcome reluctance to report contacts was announced on Tuesday while Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen was touring the Home Front Command's COVID crisis management headquarters.

While there, Cohen received an overview of what the IDF is doing to cut off outbreaks. The minister also met with deputy head of the Home Front Command Brig. Gen. Nissan Davidi, as well as with members of the Health Ministry, the privacy authority, and the Shin Bet.

During the meeting, Davidi suggested taking additional enforcement action following the contact tracing process.

Another issue raised during Cohen's visit was the idea of using technology, rather than police visits, to enforce quarantine. This would include video contact with COVID carriers in quarantine to confirm that they are where they are supposed to be.

"The Home Front Command is preparing itself. 2,800 contact tracers along with Shin Bet tracking tools and new digital methods will ensure that we continue to reduce the number of new cases," Cohen said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz agreed on Tuesday night to keep the current lockdown in effect until midnight of Oct. 18 (Sunday). This means that daycare centers and nursery schools will not open on Sunday morning.

Netanyahu and Gantz also agreed that on Thursday, they would revisit the question of easing some of the restrictions now in place, starting Monday, Oct. 19.

However, the state of emergency was cancelled as of midnight Tuesday, and starting Wednesday evening, both protests and prayers will be allowed at a distance of more than 1 km. from a person's home.

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The Corona cabinet also decided that the closure on aviation and travel abroad would remain in effect until Thursday, although the cabinet was expected to hold another discussion about travel on Wednesday.

The Corona cabinet decided that people may now leave their homes to attend relatives' weddings, if the wedding is held in the open air and no more than 20 people participate.

While there are signs that much of Israel will begin transitioning out of the lockdown, some red cities will remain shuttered due to their high COVID numbers.

Cities and towns coded "red" under the Health Ministry's stoplight plan – including some neighborhoods in Jerusalem, as well as Beit Shemesh and Ashdod – will not enjoy any release of the current restrictions.

The Jerusalem Municipality is working to bring down the number of COVID positives in the city, but as of Tuesday evening, the Neveh Yaakov and Ramat Shlomo neighborhoods were still red.

"Neveh Yaakov is a mixed neighborhood, where 75% of the residents are Haredi," said chairman of the neighborhood community administration Eli Yaakobi.

"Everyone wears masks. We are making the effort, but conditions are crowded and people ride buses a lot," Yaakobi added.

In Beit Shemesh, which was a hotspot for clashes between Haredi and secular residents long before the coronavirus crisis, divides among the residents are growing deeper.

"The general public is angry because large parts of the Haredi public are knowingly disobeying the public health rules. We aren't talking about radical sects like Neturi Karta, but rather the Haredi mainstream," said Beit Shemesh resident Gadi Damari.

Ashdod reported 141 new confirmed cases on Tuesday. According to residents, Haredi kollels were open and operating.

"Sometimes it seems as if the Haredim do whatever they want," residents said.

Betar Illit and Modi'in Illit were preparing for the lockdown to continue. Sources in local government said that private schools would open on Monday, Oct. 19, no matter what.

Yori Yalon, Shlomi Diaz, Efrat Forsher, and Gadi Golan contributed to this report.

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IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi had made the fight against the COVID epidemic in Israel a top-priority mission, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters last week.

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"We will allocate all of the efforts needed to battle against COVID-19," said Conricus.

The IDF Medical Corps has begun setting up two underground COVID-19 wards at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa to reinforce the existing wards. Once these wards begin treating patients, it will be the first time the IDF has provided medical treatment to Israeli civilians in Israel, Conricus said.

The decision to set up the wards came after preparation by IDF Deputy Chief of General Staff, Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Health Ministry Director-General Professor Hezi Levy.

"Our combat, intelligence, cyber, air force and other units defending the borders are fully operational," Conrius assured the media.

While the IDF frequently conducts rescue and medical missions overseas, treating sick Israeli civilians is a first, and the wards will be exclusively staffed by IDF medical personnel under the guidance of the hospital's civilian staff. The wards will have the capacity to provide treatment for several dozen patients.

"This is very different from basic trauma and emergency medicine," said Conricus, describing former IDF missions to disaster scenes oversees, such as earthquakes and mudslides.

Treating COVID-19 patients "is a highly cumbersome and delicate process," he said, requiring layers of protective gear and special procedures. "We are approaching this with a lot of humility, and we are learning."

The IDF expects to have the wards up and running in two to four weeks, and is recruiting medical personnel from across the IDF, including special forces and combat units.

Conricus said that "redeploying" medical personnel to the COVID front would influence the military's ability to provide routine care for soldiers, a risk the IDF was "knowingly" taking in order to support the home front.. At the same time, he stressed, routine security operations would not be affected.

The multitude of security threats facing Israel has not vanished, emphasized Conricus. Tensions remain especially high with Hezbollah in Lebanon.  The IDF's "ability to deal with them has not been affected. All of our combat, intelligence, cyber, air force and other units defending the borders are fully operational. There is no effect on our operational capability. Having said that, we are definitely taking the spread of the virus very seriously," the spokesman told reporters.

Last Thursday, Zamir led a special brainstorming session that focused on two questions: How can the IDF be more effective in what it is already doing, and what can it do in the future to assist the national effort to bring the pandemic under control?

The IDF's Alon taskforce, whose mission is to coordinate all IDF support for the national civilian effort, is up and running under the Home Front Command, Conricus told JNS.

The Alon taskforce oversees the newly-established Ela contact-tracing unit. The unit is currently training personnel ahead of launching full-scale operations to stop outbreaks. Ela will use computerized questionnaires and share data online, a technological leap forward from the pen-and-paper work civilian contact tracers have been conducting.

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Because its people still have to be trained, it will take some time before the unit is fully operationa, explained Conricus, who added that the Health Ministry was overseeing the process.

Ela will be a battalion-sized unit with some 600 to 700 personnel, with each investigator conducting multiple contract tracing inquiries every 24-hour period.

The unit is based near the Home Front Command headquarters in Ramle.

According to media reports, when the unit is up and running at full steam it will be able to conduct 5,000 daily contract tracing investigations at once, with the country processing 100,000 COVID tests a day.

The IDF is also operating approximately 30 quarantine hotels for civilians with mild cases who cannot quarantine themselves at home.

Meanwhile, over 1,000 IDF soldiers have tested positive for the virus. As of Thursday, they were all in mild condition.

"They are recovering in various locations, most of them at home, and some at recovery facilities in Ashkelon and an additional facility that we just opened," Conricus said.

In addition to all these measures, an IDF DNA lab, originally designated to be used to identify the remains of fallen soldiers, has been converted into a COVID-19 testing lab to help take some of the burden off civilian labs. The facility can currently process some 1,000 tests per day, but that capacity is expected to increase.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The 9,246 coronavirus tests that were processed nationwide on Saturday identified 761 carriers, a 9% positive rate.

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On Sunday morning, 876 Israelis were hospitalized for coronavirus, 396 of whom were listed in serious condition. Of those 396, 114 were on ventilators. Another 177 hospitalized coronavirus patients were listed in moderate condition.

The death toll from the virus reached 679 on Sunday, and a total of 92,404 Israelis are confirmed to have contracted the virus since the start of the epidemic.

Cities listed "red" under the Health Ministry's new traffic light system included Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Modi'in Illit, Betar Illit, Ilut, Ein Naqquba, Sha'ab, Kafr Bara, Lapid and Ilbun.

On Sunday morning Israel's coronavirus coordinator Professor Ronni Gamzu was interviewed by Kol Barama radio and hinted that some rabbis were not cooperating with government health directives.

"In Modi'in Illit the virus is still spreading. Unlike other Haredi cities, where there is a high rate of infection, but the spread has stopped. The percentage of positive tests is 25-305, which means that people aren't being tested. Rabbis and city leaders need to cooperate with the authorities," Gamzu said.

Touching on the sensitive issue of synagogue activity, Gamzu said, "Synagogues are a big challenge. Right now, there is no solution. We have four weeks to create a framework that will enable people to pray safely during the Days of Awe. I want to see more testing in the Haredi public.

"Anyone who is showing symptoms but does not get tested infects others. I am very unhappy with what is happening the Haredi sector, and I'm angry when I see apathy and failure to follow instructions. On the other hand, I don't want to punish [them] with a full closure, I want to give them a chance," Gamzu said.

On Friday, the Health Ministry urged the public to stay away from the Arab Israeli town of Yarka because of the rate at which coronavirus was spreading there. However, Yarka was still listed "orange" in Sunday's data. On Saturday the IDF announced it would be setting up a drive-through coronavirus testing site in Yarka.

Nationwide, over 2,000 members of health care professions were in quarantine on Sunday, including 272 doctors, 568 nurses, and 1,174 other health care workers.

In related news, a report from the legal department of the Health Ministry said that over one-quarter (27%) of confirmed coronavirus carriers in Israel have been identified as a result of electronic tracking by the Shin Bet security agency.

The Shin Bet's tracking measures, which have been the subject of controversy, have located 2,827 out of the 10,206 coronavirus carriers identified last week, the report said.

According to the report, each of the carriers identified last week had come into contact with an average of 4.2 people. This past week, 43,464 people received notifications that they were required to quarantine themselves.

In the past month and a half, over half a million Israelis have been instructed to enter quarantine, the report said.

Last week, 13 people refused to quarantine themselves or confirm that they were in quarantine. Their cases were reported to the Israel Police. There were also a few cases of suspected carriers testing negative for coronavirus immediately after receiving positive test results. People who had been ordered to quarantine themselves because contact tracing showed that they had come into contact with these individuals were released from quarantine.

The report also stated that some electronic tracing had been conducted in error, because phone numbers had been entered into the system incorrectly. In one case, the device of a healthy person who had the same name as a confirmed coronavirus carrier was assigned for tracing.

The Health Ministry said that last week, a hotline set up to allow citizens to appeal their quarantine orders had fielded 22,554 calls. Over half of the callers were released from quarantine after their cases were reviewed, and 48 had the length of their quarantine shortened.

Senior deputy legal advisor for the Health Ministry Talia Agmon reported these figures to MK Zvi Hauser (Derech Eretz), head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Hauser has asked that continued electronic tracking of carriers' phones be made conditional on quarantine being shortened from 14 days to 12.

"There is no country that is putting so many people into quarantine," Hauser said.

"I intend to ask that along with the medical report, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee receive a report from the Finance Ministry that assesses the scope of the economic damage if the existing policy and extent of mandatory quarantine continues," Hauser said.

Over the weekend, the Health Ministry published a position paper in which is recommended that the mandatory period of quarantine for people who were exposed to confirmed carriers remain at 14 days.

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According to Channel 13, which did not cite a source, the program was approved by top Justice Ministry officials, including Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit. The Shin Bet reportedly received permission to operate the program for six months, after which the agency was allowed to proceed with it for another 2.5 years. It is also possible that the tracking is still in place, the report said.

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What, if any, oversight measure are in place is unclear.

The report did not go into detail about what type of data the Shin Bet was gathering, and said that the agency mined data from cellular providers' databases – allegedly without informing them or obtaining permission.

The Justice Ministry issued a statement in response to the report: "The methods the Shin Bet uses in its fight against terrorism and in general are by law classified, and exposing them could cause serious harm to national security. Often, legal issues pertaining to the agency's methods are presented to the attorney general, or one of his representatives, to be evaluated and approved."

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The research, conducted by the Parks Associates market research company, also tracked changes in consumer attitudes and adoption of telehealth services as a result of COVID-19 as well as measuring future interest in telehealth services once the pandemic is over.

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The study found that Americans who experienced COVID-19 symptoms were more willing to share smartphone data to aid in contact tracing than those who have not experienced symptoms. Still, nearly half of those who have not experienced symptoms are willing to share their smartphone data.

"Apple and Google have together developed an API and framework that developers, in partnership with public health officials and other stakeholders, can use to build contact-tracing apps," said senior analyst Kristen Hanich.

As for the other aspect of the study, Hanich pointed out that the study found that use of telehealth services nearly tripled year-over-year, with 41% of US broadband households having used a telehealth service in the past 12 months.

"This increased usage of telehealth services comes as many consumers are unable – or unwilling – to visit a physician in person due to widespread efforts to minimize in-person contact with patients. It is a dramatic switch for both care providers and telehealth services," she noted.

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