The easier parts of the Corona Supervisor role are the technical parts • The real difficulty will be restoring public trust and preparing a balanced plan that can be implemented • Interpretation

• Commissioner Roni Gamzo

  Photo: 

  Gideon Markovich

This is a good opportunity to wish Prof. Gamzo success in his new role as Superintendent. His success is our chance to get back our previous lives, albeit with the new adjustments to the current situation. The first issue he has to deal with, as he himself said, is restoring public trust. But how do you do that? Not a simple thing at all, if at all feasible.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Health presented the new Commissioner for the Corona // Photo: GPO

In the first stage, it must bring about cooperation between all the factors in the country related to the treatment of the problem, the messages coming out of the various bodies must be compatible with each other and create a visibility according to which the state acts as one body. The big question: Will politicians and public servants be able to overcome their personal interests and gain a holistic worldview, and not just certain, sometimes narrow angles? Not a simple challenge these days.

The second thing the supervisor needs to deal with is preparing an action plan for at least the next six months - what to do, when and in what situation. Although in April the Ministry of Health prepared such a plan, they were unable to get the decision-makers to comply with it. Therefore the biggest challenge of the projector is to bring a balanced plan with its economic and epidemiological implications, which will enable conviction of the decision-making level, resulting in a consistent and coherent implementation. This challenge may be beyond the capabilities of the projector, but as mentioned - only broad cooperation will lead to this, and that is what the state needs at this stage.

The easier aspects of projector tasks are the technical and organizational parts such as planning the number of tests, criteria for performing the tests, receiving timely answers, equal accessibility for the entire population, improving the epidemiological investigation by increasing the number of people involved, enforcing isolations and closures, enforcing crowd gatherings and more. In addition, hospitals need to be prepared for winter. At least in this area there is hope, the data coming from the southern planet, where it is winter now, is encouraging. It turns out that flu rates in countries such as Chile, Australia and New Zealand have dropped miraculously compared to previous years. Most of the contagious disease is of corona and not the flu, and tests to identify the cause of the disease show that the minority of cases is due to the flu virus. 

If there is no increase in influenza in Israel in the run-up to winter, the burden on hospitals will depend only on corona morbidity and we may be able to avoid flooding hospitals in winter. The explanation for this phenomenon is that all changes in public behavior - such as preventing crowds, using masks and maintaining hygiene, stopping flights between countries, and of course increasing public response to flu vaccines - prevent the population from contracting various winter viruses, including influenza. But in order for us to see this phenomenon as well, the public must continue to obey the instructions for keeping a distance, wearing masks and preventing crowds.

Another issue that needs to be addressed now and immediately is planning the school year coming to us soon. The Ministry of Education must find a way to reduce classroom sizes and overcrowding in schools and kindergartens. The combination of distance learning and classroom learning, depending on the age of the children, can address this. For example, the division of school days or hours between classes will allow for the division of classes into several groups. In Israel, compared to Europe, the number of children in the class is high and the size of the rooms is small (in short - density), so it is impossible to prevent infection. This situation must be changed and it can be done, but it must be planned carefully and it may be taken into account that it is necessary to reduce the number of frontal school hours of the children.

The author serves at the School of Public Health, University of Haifa