The National Department of Health's preparedness against the spread of the Corona epidemic is cautious and correct. Currently, the ministry appears to be taking exceptional precautions, but does so without unnecessary panic and hysteria, and at least so far the information provided by the Department of Public Health is believed to be a critical issue in a fear of epidemic that has hitherto no cure and no vaccine.

The ministry took extreme and unusual steps last week that have not been seen in Israel for decades, including the renewal of a legal order that allows for hospitalization for those who refuse to be hospitalized after returning from China and having suspicious signs of the disease. Such a compulsory instruction has already been exercised, who he believed to be, at the great hospital in the land of Sheba in Tel Hashomer.

The ministry also imposed a legal obligation on those who returned from China to stay home in quarantine or isolation for two weeks, and even talked about the possibility of operating the police in case Israel violated the directive.

However, the warnings, threats and coercive measures of the Ministry of Health rely not only on extreme law provisions that impose treatment and isolation on the citizens of the state, but primarily on the social solidarity of the Israeli public, and a common concern that is the education, values ​​and ethics, of the health of each person and his or her family, but Also of everyone to our society and country.

As part of this, the Ministry of Health hopes that the Israelis who come from China will keep the office's instructions and isolate themselves at home for two weeks, not only to protect themselves and their families but the general public.

It is also true that this solidarity sounds anachronistic and detached from the social and political realities in the country, but in fact it is not, as some public health services rely on medical and therapeutic social responsibility, which defends as individuals and as a society for the health and life of everyone.

For example, vaccines against infectious diseases such as influenza and measles - and even the vaccine against the corona virus, if developed in the future - not only protect the patients who themselves receive the vaccine, but also provide public social protection at the same time.

This solidarity is critical in protection against epidemics, and it has already gone wrong in Israel as more and more groups of Israelis have refused to vaccinate their children against measles, and when serious failures in the Ministry of Health were discovered to protect the outbreak of the severe epidemic in Israel a few months ago.

The Health Ministry's severe failures in public information (and in particular the doctors and siblings in particular) about the importance of vaccines against measles and seasonal flu may now be revealed again as the ministry expects the Israelis and wishes they would find social solidarity in fulfilling the Corona guidelines.

The Ministry of Health estimates that it is probably only a matter of time before an Israeli patient with the virus is discovered, but even if such a patient is discovered in Israel, it will not be, God forbid, an outbreak of the epidemic in Israel. So, of course, the ministry will have to take more significant steps to try to eradicate the spread of the virus, and to ensure the isolation of patients found with the dangerous virus - all with full and transparent reporting to the public.

However, the readiness of hospitals and health funds for the outbreak of the epidemic is also dependent on budgetary distress and severe burdens anyway, which have been warned by doctors, managers and hospital organizations for many years. Indeed, the global fear of a deadly epidemic erupts again the critical, existential and strategic importance of a strong and stable health system in which the public lends credence.

A system that provides high-quality medical services and is available routinely, which will do so even in emergencies. To that end, the next government, every government, must initiate and budget a long-term national plan to strengthen the public health system, after decades of no such plan.