Less than a week after his election as Corona's commissioner, Professor Gamzo will present the Magen Israel program to combat the epidemic. • Among the principles: creating clear criteria for restrictions

• Corona Professor, Professor Roni Gamzo // Photo "Oren Ben Hakon

Prof. Roni Gamzo may not have been given powers in an official and orderly manner, and at a press conference he was presented by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein as "we will have help." But five days since he was appointed, Gamzo managed to formulate the "Magen Israel" plan, which he will present today to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later also to the Minister of Health and the public.

By the time he took office, Gamzo had already announced that his goal was to maintain as much routine as possible alongside Corona. "There is widespread morbidity and community contagion that creates difficulty in society and the economy, and the goal is to address it with as little harm to society and the economy as possible," he said at the time, "We will try to do it without closure. This is not the first act the state takes."

The plan he will present is based on data from experts and the hospitals themselves, on a hierarchy of measures, restrictions and facilitations that will be determined in advance. The ranking will be based on numbers, on information through which the government will try to regain public trust, and of course on shortening the time and streamlining the system of laboratory tests, epidemiological investigations and isolations.

The Magen Israel program will be based on models from the Gartner Institute, relatively rigorous models that have been used so far and have been criticized for their predictions of "thousands of dead", as well as a model developed by Ichilov Hospital experts to predict difficult patients.

Integrated model

At the same time, Gamzo has already set up a forum called "Field Medical Barometer", which includes medical and nursing staff from all major hospitals (but not HMOs) who will present a bi-weekly index of health system and hospital flow data - not just critically ill or sick, but Also the resilience of the staffs and the ability to maintain a medical routine alongside the treatment of Corona.

According to the Gamzo plan, the debates over the opening of the gyms and pools or their closure will be replaced by an orderly plan of a "warning level" (published on "Israel Today" yesterday), which will serve as an outline for further restrictions and their removal. Each change will be in accordance with the criteria of a number of morbidity indices, and the aim is to present uniform rules for all types of activities (for example, the same number of people in synagogues, restaurants and hotel dining rooms).

More than 300 in critical condition

Prof. Itamar Grotto, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Health, has already begun working on the model that will be presented to the government in less than two weeks and is expected to be another confidence-building step towards the public. It was also determined that Magen Israel's dedicated Facebook page will be updated every morning.

As for epidemiological investigations, the challenge is to shorten to 48 hours the interval between obtaining a positive laboratory result and introducing all that is required for isolation. Gamzo spoke with Defense Minister Benjamin Gantz about the intention to help the soldiers, but the Ministry of Health clarifies that there is no intention to close the ministry's investigation system, which is thickened by hundreds of investigators. The ministry will continue to set the policy. Soldiers will be able to assist with technical aspects such as investigating a place where the patient was staying, calling people who came in contact with him, but the epidemiological nurses will provide professional guidance.

The "Madat - for the sake of informed health" organization called on Prof. Gamzo to also involve the public in decision-making. “Dealing with the corona plague requires professional leadership and strengthening the health care system, but all of that will fail if the public is not considered as a partner,” said Adva Lotin, the association’s CEO, “We understand that if the public were part of the decision-making process, things would look different. I call on Prof. Gamzo to speak to the public, not just to him. "

However, yesterday (until 19:30) 1,205 new patients were diagnosed, bringing the number of active patients to 35,982. The number of hospitalized patients stood at 739 and broke all morbidity records even of the first wave. 310 of the hospitalized were in critical condition, 96 of them respirators. Two patients died yesterday, bringing the death toll to 474. The Ministry of Health has not yet completed the update of the number of recoveries following a change in the procedure for shortening the duration of recovery. According to the ministry, the number was 27,125.