Opening schools was an act of risk-taking as part of trial and error • A national effort to cut down on infections and minimal personal responsibility will allow a return to routine • Opinion

In recent weeks, we have seen a steady improvement in most European countries in eruption control, after a prolonged period of closure and restrictions that were committed to reality. Now, after the heavy price they have paid, countries such as France, Spain and Italy are taking measured and cautious steps in coming out of closure and taking strict care as severe.

Photo: Shmuel Buchris

The State of Israel had the privilege to act differently. Faced with an exponential and rapid decline in morbidity, the State of Israel has implemented and implemented a very rapid (and some claim, too fast) easing sequence to bring the economy and society back to productive stripes as quickly as possible. One of the recent decisions made in this framework, to restore schools to routine activities, is almost uneven in other countries trying to get back into routine. And so, we have no point of comparison or way of knowing whether controlled morbidity can be maintained given dense classes of 30+ children, under "real life" conditions where there is no strict adherence to wearing masks. And in this context, the evidence from the last days is disturbing. At least two incidents of infecting more than ten (and in many cases - dozens) of students and teachers are a warning sign that mentions that high temperatures, and hypotheses about low infection rates in children, are not a barrier for the Corona.

The decision to open the schools was an act of risk taking, knowing that we are expected, within the fog of battle, to trial and error. And it is a mistake, and one must risk - we have a broad and significant "confidence interval" between the current morbidity rate and the rate that risks the health system in failure. This is a wide maneuvering space that allows risk-taking, but still requires their hedging.

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Therefore, there is no place at this time for mass closure of schools or high schools, beyond those in which they are morbid or at particular risk. The Ministry of Health must ensure prompt investigation and extensive testing in each case of classroom morbidity to effectively interrupt the adhesive chains. However, if we see in the coming days that mass infection events are occurring in educational institutions, there will also be no escape from changing the purple character of schools, and move to an adapted activity framework which is less productive for mass infection.

And mass infection is not an unusual occurrence in this disease. According to cumulative evidence from research in Israel and around the world, the disease tends to spread at specific points of mass infection in unprotected audiences, and less monotonously from person to person. In one of the most famous events in this context, 53 (out of 61) became infected at a choir meeting in Washington state, at a single meeting from a single patient. Two of them died in the meantime.

Minimize responsibility

The evidence is that in this disease every gathering event is a barrel of gunpowder waiting for a match. So far, luck has played out to us, but at some point a non-masked person will enter a rally, and an event will begin that will make it difficult for us to stop without extensive distance steps than we wanted. It is easy to prevent these events - simply to take minimal responsibility: avoid crowding, wearing masks, avoiding leaving home with any suspicious symptoms - with an emphasis on fever, cough or discomfort in the taste and smell that is a typical sign of Corona, and contact the health care office to be examined.

With the increase in the spread of morbidity, assuming this trend continues, the risk to the older population and the chronically ill will increase, and they must return to exercise caution and preventative caution in reducing encounters and close contacts. But at the end of the day, a combination of national effort to cut the adhesive chains and minimal personal responsibility for reasonable behavior will allow the continued return to routine without interruption and without delay. The State of Israel is in the opening condition of the best possible to succeed in this, and it is entirely up to us.

The writer is a professor of public health, head of the innovation system at Clalit Health Services