The Prime Minister regarded the closure as a great success, but the question of whether it is a necessary solution is controversial • As a doctor, I am faced with government decisions with not simple questions • Less restrictions are required and much more cooperation in defending against the corona and stopping the spread • Opinion
In his speech in the Knesset on Thursday, the Prime Minister chose to address the current decline in morbidity in Israel after more than three weeks of a "comprehensive closure."
In his remarks, it was heard that the comprehensive closure, which so many opposed, was successful, with the daily number of infections falling below 2,000 and the famous R falling below 1.0.
European countries that have not yet opted for a comprehensive closure, the prime minister argued, will still come to learn from us.
Photo: Knesset Channel
It is true that there is a very disturbing "second wave" of morbidity in some European countries, but the question of whether closure is a necessary and unique solution is controversial.
The enormous social and economic price paid and paid by society in Israel is disturbing in itself.
I have expressed my position quite a bit, because the means of protection, the mask, social distance and the prevention of gatherings of any kind are of medical importance.
These measures are important in reducing contacts and reducing the morbidity coefficient, but as a doctor I am faced with the government's decision on the total closure with not simple questions: Is the shutdown of Ben Gurion Airport at all related to lowering the number of infections? Of two weeks of verified contact, really prevents the chain of infection, instead of testing a pen after a "closure" of 5 days?
Does closing small businesses, shops, B & Bs and more, where there are no gatherings at all, help reduce morbidity?
Does leaving babies and toddlers in homes, instead of sending them to kindergartens in "permanent bubbles" as everyone else does, help reduce morbidity?
Especially when it is quite clear that the risk of infection from them is very small (there is medical literature and clear statistics of the World Health Organization on this subject).
Does the 1,000-meter limit help prevent infection?
If once the medical treatment of a limb infection had to be amputated in order to save a life, medicine has added many measures to both prevent death and preserve the limb.
By analogy with the general closure, it can be said that it is possible to defeat the disease - and also to preserve the economy, when the technology used is not inclusive but specific and professional.
Scattering coefficient
To understand the meaning from a medical epidemiological point of view, let’s start with a sentence that may sound controversial, but is significant for further discussion: more than 60 percent of Corona positives (I intentionally do not call them patients) are not contagious.
The medical literature speaks of only about 9 percent of the positives they are contagious, and calls them "super-distributors."
The literature knows that apart from the R that we have already learned to recognize as the almighty coefficient of adhesion, no less important is the K - the scattering coefficient.
This coefficient, K, is related to the level of risk of spreading the disease to the general public.
A "super-distributor" who is in a closed and unventilated room, full of crowds (imagine a crowded bar), is able to catch up with most of those present.
In other words, it's the same patch that's under investigation in the epidemiological and has already infected someone before.
The "super distributor" requires spot treatment of it, and not the other 90 percent of the total population.
Locating and isolating the super-distributors is the key to preventing the next closure, and it's the best chance we have of saving the population restrictions and the harms of a comprehensive closure.
On Friday, when I left my home within the permitted range of 1,000 meters, I saw a long line of cars entering the "get tested and drive" complex in the market complex of Rosh HaAyin.
I rubbed my eyes, just for that I have been dreaming for a whole "pregnancy" of Corona.
Without a doctor, without bureaucracy, you just approach, get tested and get a result that day.
Archive photo: Shmuel Buharis
The head of the eye is not unique.
More cities in all sorts of colors have been organized in recent weeks with the help of the Home Front Command, MDA or other mass testing bodies. This is exactly what we need to capture the super-distributors as well, and significantly reduce infection rates. Taiwan, Singapore, China or any other country Who understands that the secret of suppressing the plague is to carry out as many tests as possible for an asymptomatic population.
This phenomenon reflects the responsiveness and mobilization of a large section of the public, who responded to the projector's call to come out and be tested.
This response to medical logic - rather than quarantine - will succeed in isolating the super-infectious, not to mention a decrease in the percentage of positive tests, which served as a means of pressure for general quarantine.
The Ministry of Health called on gardeners to be tested even before the gardens opened.
An important and vital step, just like Operation Fathers and Mothers Protest where staff are checked, just as hospitals check staff and just as the education system must check staff periodically as a condition of opening classes.
Perhaps fewer unnecessary restrictions, less enforcement, less tension on all sides and much more cooperation in defending and stopping the plague will finally bring the hoped-for result - and save us a third and unnecessary closure.