Reports in Israel over the weekend about the 16-year-old boy who died of multisystem infection affecting children in Corona, and the baby who for the same reason was rushed to emergency surgery after her condition became critical - once again illustrated the duty of the government, and all of us, to try and protect children from Corona infection, even if in most children the virus causes mild to very mild illness.
According to the Ministry of Health, about half a million children and adolescents have been confirmed in Corona since the beginning of the epidemic, and according to senior health officials, hundreds more children may suffer from the severe and life-threatening physical effects of prolonged corona (Long Covid). This is in addition to thousands of Israeli children who may suffer for many months and even many years from severe, even if not life-threatening, physical and mental symptoms of the same ongoing corona. These estimates are based on data and studies around the world that have followed the corona in children, as well as on the data accumulating in Israel in recent weeks.
Therefore, the government and the Ministries of Education and Health have a duty to exercise caution in operating educational institutions, so as not to abandon and sacrifice children, and to reduce as much as possible mass infections and the continued spread of the epidemic through schools and among children in Israel.
This obligation is reinforced by the assessment that within a few weeks there is a very high chance that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will approve the vaccine for Corona in children aged 11-5, followed immediately by Israel, and thus it will be possible to closely protect children from the plague.
Even before the start of the school year on September 1, there were senior health officials who called for postponing the opening after the holidays to reduce infections, morbidity and mortality, and indeed, as expected, the opening of the school year led to infections of thousands more Corona students.
These are now in danger of developing the ongoing corona effects, and more than 200,000 students and their families are also in isolation.
Now, with the reopening of schools after the Tishrei holidays, there is again pressure from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Education Minister Yifat Shasha Bitton, who are willing to do anything, at almost any cost, to reduce student isolation in schools, and all this - so they can show victory Political of "routine under Corona", whatever the price may be.
In this spirit, the plan to abolish isolation in the green cities was announced starting today, even before the pilot that tested it in the education system ended.
The government is now acting irresponsibly and immorally, as if their only educational and political health goal is to fight isolation instead of trying first and foremost to reduce the number of children who will be infected and harmed by Corona, certainly when vaccinating children is very close.
This is similar to the conduct of the last two months of the fourth wave, when the goal was to fight the closure at all costs instead of agreeing to the restrictions demanded by senior Ministry of Health (gathering and additional restrictions, but not closure) and this led to the terrible increase in corona victims It is not over yet.
At the end of September, the National Cabinet of Experts warned Corona in an unusual and unprecedented way that "those who support mass infection policies in schools, whether explicitly or implicitly in advancing infection control decisions, should make the heavy cost to children (Long Covid and rare complications) and adults, And especially the unvaccinated and vulnerable. "
The Cabinet further recommended the use of a new and extensive range of tools, such as an emphasis on outdoor ventilation and learning when possible, and the operation of the "green classroom" only in circumstances that would prove themselves in the pilot as preventing a large majority of infections.
However, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education are not, as usual, willing to listen to senior Ministry of Health officials, and they refuse to wait for the pilot to end.
By doing so, they could cause some of the million children who have not yet been vaccinated to become infected, and be harmed - God forbid - even fatally.
And while the vaccine for children is very close, the policy of the government and the Ministry of Education is immoral, irresponsible and unforgivable.