Second wave starts to fall
THE “SECOND wave” of the coronavirus pandemic in Israel seems to be ebbing but the daily rate of new infections remains high and the increase in numbers of severe cases is beginning to take its toll on hospitals.
Two weeks ago, the daily rate of new infections crossed the two-thousand mark as the government warned there would be a need for a new lockdown if citizens did not take better care in social distancing. Since then, the numbers have gone down and, over the last week, the average daily rate of new infections has been around 1500.
Professor Eran Segal of Weizmann Institute who has been running a program of Covid-19 monitoring said on Wednesday that “it looks like we’ve stopped the rise in cases but we can’t remain around 1500-1800 infections a day. It creates an intolerable strain on the health system and doesn’t give us room for maneuvering.”
In recent days, four main hospitals, Hadassa and Shaarei Tzedek in Jerusalem, Sheba near Tel Aviv and Rambam in Haifa, have all been forced to close intensive care units due to the need to move personnel and resources to wards dealing with coronavirus cases.
Hospital directors have set a “redline” of 800 severe cases as the maximum the country can deal with without serious damage to the general level of care. So far, the number of severe cases is hovering at around 400 but doctors are warning that the number could rapidly rise due to the tens of thousands of infections in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, the new “Coronavirus Czar”, Ronny Gamzu, has already found himself at loggerheads with politicians. Professor Gamzu is loath to recommend a new nationwide lockdown and prefers instead to designate various towns and areas with high infection rates. But local council leaders and their allies at national level are strongly opposed to local closures.
At a tense meeting with Jerusalem city council on Wednesday morning, Professor Gamzu said that 12 percent of those being tested in the capital were found positive for Covid-19 and said that “any other city in the world with this rate of illness would be under lockdown. People would not be allowed out of their homes and no-one would be allowed to leave the city.”
Professor Gamzu, who has warned that he would resign if he feels his hands are being tied, is also in conflict with education minister Yoav Galant over the opening of the new school year in three weeks. He believes that only kindergartens and primary schools for children under the age of ten should reopen at this stage, with other classes resuming only after the High Holiday in mid-October. Mr Galant however announced on Monday at the Knesset Education Committee that any delay would be “a very bad idea” and that “the school year will open on September 1st, whoever says other things is sowing panic.”
Prof Gamzu is in conflict with politicians’