Decision making by whims, unavailable data and especially atmosphere of panic • Documentation of internal discussion of the Medical Association reveals extraordinary criticism of senior officials of the Ministry of Health • "Crazy things are happening here" • Ministry of Health: "We operate transparently and publish raw data"

"You have to make decisions based on data, and not on whims , the raw data on the Corona is not available to professionals inside and outside the office, and they cannot offer what they think should be done. We can deal with the Corona much better." Prof. Hagai Levin, chairman of the Association of Public Health Doctors, said this in a special discussion of the Corona that took place last Thursday at noon through the Medical Association's zoom. 

Ministry of Health instructions to prevent the spread of the Corona virus in Israel // Credit: Ministry of Health

Prof. Idit Matot, chairman of the Anesthesiology Association and director of anesthesia and intensive care unit at Ichilov Hospital also treating coronary patients, warned at the same hearing that "The Ministry of Health is in a data-free place, they do not have enough data and the data are not sufficiently interesting, and are led by anxieties "About 50 chairmen of the medical unions participated in the Medical Federation, which represents all areas of medicine in Israel, and its documentation reached Israel today."

At the special hearing, Prof. Levin also said that the letter he sent a week ago to MoD CEO Moshe Bar Good to hospital managers, saying that if they extend their urgent medical activities, it could be a criminal offense (a statement on which Bar Good has already apologized) , R.R.) is a "delusional" statement, and that "it is not public health to prevent people from exercising or getting medical treatment." 

Levin further warned that "something crazy and amazing is happening here" since "you can't know about contact between people only by cellular data. It doesn't work and it's completely useless, it's like they would suggest that Corona treatment be done only by robots." In doing so, he criticized the neglect of epidemiological investigations carried out only by the ISA and not by nurses and public health doctors.

As revealed by Meital Yasur Beit Or in Israel Today, Prof. Levine wrote to the Bar a good sign that "in order to understand the rationale for guidelines and to make evidence-based decisions, we need access to available data on the characteristics of patients in general and the difficult patients in particular. , The characteristics of the respiratory patients, the numbers of the subjects to Corona according to localities and more. " Yesterday, Professor Levine said no response was received from the Ministry of Health to his request. 

However, it could be understood from the discussion that a large proportion of senior physicians recognized the importance of critical public observance of the Ministry of Health's special restrictions and that the restrictions were among the factors that led to Israel's control of the epidemic and its relatively low mortality. 

In the special hearing on Thursday, Prof. Mattot said that some of the Ministry of Health's decisions were "devoid of reality, and what is delusional is that part of what is happening is due to 'anxiety attacks' in the Ministry of Health." 

"Corona patients are not something that cannot be accommodated, and they are with us to stay and our successes in the difficult patients are not great, around 30-25 percent," she said. "Then we are happy. We learn a lot about the Corona and it is unlike any flu we have ever known, (but) there has to be some sort of return to the routine and understanding that further separation between the Corona staff and the others is really impossible." 

At the hearing, Prof. Eyal Leshem, director of the Institute of Travelers Medicine and Tropical Diseases at Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer, described how difficult and complex the treatment of the difficult corona patients is. According to him, the treatment of 30 severely ill patients in Sheba has already resulted in the inactivation of two internal wards as well as of Department of General Intensive Care.

He also strongly warned that "the condition of 100 severely ill and respiratory patients may already disable all other hospitals, whereas in the condition of 200 severely ill patients they will no longer have a chance of surviving, even if they have enough respirators."

"Vaccine for flu"

He said, "We also need to prepare for a very complex situation where we will have to treat hundreds of seriously ill patients at once." It also raised the concern that next winter there would be an outbreak of the corona, which, along with an outbreak of seasonal influence, "could be a very high mortality because we could not hold on to such a situation." 

To that end, the Ministry of Health suggested encouraging the public to get the flu in October-November this year, and Professor Levine said there was an urgent need to advance legislation against vaccine opponents.

The Ministry of Health said in response: "We publish data to the public in a transparent and continuous manner across a variety of information platforms. In addition, raw data exists on the Ministry's website in a way that is accessible to all."