Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar-Siman-Tov said Thursday that schools in Israel were not set to reopen in the near future as the country mulled its exit strategy from coronavirus measures.
"We are all observing other countries and at the moment, none are opening schools," he said. "I think we should wait at least for now."
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An elementary school in Ramat Gan is deserted due to coronavirus measures
(Photo: AP)
Bar-Siman-Tov said the decision is ultimately up to the politicians but realistically, children who could be easily infected with coronavirus may become carriers and increase infection in the population.
Education Minister Rafi Peretz said the decision is up to his own ministry to make.
"If I had been asked what a pandemic would look like in Israel, a small and overcrowded country with large families and small homes, I would have imagined it would be out of control and that had not happened because of the behavior of the public and the decisions of the government," the DG said urging restrictions should be in place a while longer.
"We should first see that any easing of restrictions does not cause further spread of the virus."
He also warned that life would be still different once regulations are eased. Israel has shut down its education system, cultural life and non-essential shops in an effort to stem the spread of the contagious virus.
"I prefer to use the term 'coronavirus routine' and not an 'exit strategy' because the virus is not going anywhere and will be with us for a long time," he said. "We will have to make adjustments to our lives. Things will look different from now on."
He warned that the current number of confirmed cases was enough to cause an increase in contagion.
"We must not risk the progress made so far thanks to the exemplary behavior of the public," he said.
Bar-Siman-Tov also said he believed the government would be deciding on which steps to take as early as next week but would weigh the impact of each measure carefully before further restrictions were lifted.
"I understand the need to increase economic activity," he said, "but the moves must be considered and slow and we will discuss them in meetings with the prime minister before they are made public."
"It is not all about money, we are talking about people who are restricted to their homes for a long time and it is understandable they are less willing to adhere to the guidelines," Bar-Siman-Tov said. "The challenge we face is allowing some steps without increasing the spread of the virus and if we see a rise in cases, we should be able to reverse course," he said.
The Health Ministry chief said Israel's health system was improving its capacity and ability to deal with the pandemic and would continue to do so. He warned however that this was contingent on the rate of new cases continuing to drop.
"I would like to see these improvements in place in case there is a resurgence of the virus next winter," he said.
"We currently have 3,500 available ventilators but our goal is to avoid overloading the hospitals," he said. "One must bear in mind that we have cut 80% of non-coronavirus medical treatments and we have to bring patients back for elective surgery, fertility treatments and other non-urgent needs."
On the matter of testing, Bar-Siman-Tov said the ministry was fighting on multiple fronts but would increase testing for coronavirus, He said Israel is third or fourth in the world for the amount of testing done.
"We will reach 30,000 tests per day," he said. "We are doing 10,000 tests each day already and will reach 15,000, although we are struggling with the same problems as the rest of the world. We will improve but we cannot claim there are no problems."
Bar-Siman-Tov also downplayed the expectation that "more testing will free us from the restrictions," which he called unrealistic.
"Even if we were to conduct 50,000 tests each day, we have four million people in the workforce," he said, adding that the tests were also limited and have given multiple false results.
First published: 14:43, 04.16.20