MK Hauser calls on the Ministry of Health to change the criteria for isolation from 14 to 12 days • Shortening isolation will save the economy about 600,000 working days
MK Hauser // Photo: Dudi Vaknin
The chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Zvi Hauser (Derech Eretz), calls for a change in the criteria for isolating people who have come into contact with verified Corona patients.
In an urgent letter published here for the first time, sent yesterday to the Director General of the Ministry of Health Prof. Hezi Levy - with copies to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and the Shin Bet - Hauser notes that following lengthy discussions in recent weeks The GSS is helping to reduce the spread of the corona, and in light of the data on the growing number of people required to enter solitary confinement, it believes two urgent steps should be taken.
The first is to shorten the isolation period of people who have come into contact with a verified patient from 14 to 12 days. According to him, based on information and background conversations, the assessment is strengthened that the last two days of isolation (13th and 14th) have a lower risk of developing symptoms and infection than in the first 12 days. In July, some 300,000 people suspected of being in contact with verified patients entered and will go into solitary confinement. Shortening the isolation period by two days will save the economy about 600,000 working days.
The second - updating the criteria for the distance and length of time a person has been with a verified corona carrier that requires his entry into isolation. The rule of thumb today is that a person who has stayed for 15 minutes at a distance of up to 2 meters from a verified corona carrier must go into isolation.
This rule was established at the time of the epidemic in March, when there was no strict adherence to masks, regulating the Ministry of Health's assistance to GSS localities because of which the number of people entering solitary confinement is greater than those entering without an epidemiological inquiry, and the introduction of a civilian widget.
In his letter, Hauser notes that "the continued introduction of hundreds of thousands of Israelis into solitary confinement for long periods of time, without examining the 'principles of the system', could seriously undermine public confidence and commitment and continue to cooperate in the national effort. And that an examination of these arrangements takes place regularly and systematically. "