Have you heard in recent weeks about a campaign and information campaign that encourages the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have not yet been vaccinated to do so at all?
Have you heard of special vaccination operations for more than a million other Israelis who have not been vaccinated in the third dose of corona?
About mass immunizations for children in schools?
probably not.
Certainly you have not heard of any new and severe restrictions imposed by the government in the last month on anyone who has not been vaccinated in the workplace, including hundreds or more of health and education workers.
You have probably also not heard of a special preparation by the Ministry of Health to open new hospital beds, and an initiative to staff the hospitals with a team of skilled and experienced nurses and doctors to better treat respiratory corona patients.
All of these necessary steps were and still are critical to saving lives, and increasing Israel's capacity to fight the corona plague.
But the government has not taken them so far, even before the threatening spread of the new variant Omicron in recent days, which came from South Africa to the whole world - and also to Israel.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz have repeatedly boasted in recent weeks that Israel has emerged from the fourth wave of the Corona, without a closure as in previous waves, without severe restrictions and with completely open schools since the beginning of the year.
But in fact, contrary to the illusion they were trying to sell us, the fourth wave did not end at all: Hundreds of new verifiers continued to emerge daily, and in the past week there has been a consistent, sustained and alarming rise in verified numbers and an index examining the epidemic rate (R).
In fact, in the current disease state there were senior experts and doctors who saw these figures as the first signs of the onset of Corona's fifth wave in the country.
Beginning of the children's immunization campaign at the HMOs // Photo: Shmuel Buharis, Yaniv Zohar
To this day, the current government has run away from the threatening news that it does not want to hear and prefers not to know: the prime minister and health minister continue to zealously forget to forget and not to mention the more than 1,700 Israeli corona victims who died in the fourth wave. The plague.
Since the announcement of the end of the fourth wave, the government has taken a series of irresponsible, dangerous and hasty measures.
The last of which began at a particularly unfortunate time: last Friday, the same day that international anxiety about the new variant began, it was then that they eased (!) The tests that Israelis must do when returning from abroad.
As of Friday afternoon, both Prime Minister Bennett and Health Minister Horowitz had recovered, and at the same time Western countries had begun to boldly take a series of urgent and necessary steps to try to reduce the spread of the epidemic.
Yesterday, the Corona Cabinet and the government also promoted vital and critical steps in an attempt to halt the corona's renewed and dangerous spread in the country.
There is no doubt that it is necessary to temporarily prevent the entry of tourists and foreigners into Israel, and to bring about a safer entry of Israelis returning to Israel, including isolation and stay in hotels.
Next, it should be borne in mind that when some cabinet ministers return and press with utter irresponsibility on the Corona Cabinet to allow any restraint on entry and exit from Israel, as they have done with reprehensible success in recent weeks.
Corona test at Ben Gurion Airport, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
Under the new threat of the African variant, Israel arrives in a fragile state with erroneous messages of complacency, repression of corona victims and repeated messages to the public of government ministers and some senior Ministry of Health officials as if we passed the fourth wave in peace, as if no other wave is expected.
Therefore, most of the corona restrictions were removed, and all this - with a combination of almost zero to zero enforcement.
Now it will be a very difficult task, even if necessary, to reinstate the restrictions in order to reduce the re-expansion of the corona and get the public to comply with them.
Another task of the government now is to try to protect children aged 5-11 and encourage as much as possible their immunization, in order to increase herd immunity and prevent hundreds more children from becoming seriously ill in Corona and even, God forbid, dying, as has already happened in Israel.
According to data from the Association of Pediatricians in the Medical Association, out of half a million children admitted to Corona in Israel, 201 children significantly and severely fell ill, of whom 11 died.
In addition, data from the UK were presented in the Knesset, according to which about 4.6% of children who became infected and recovered from corona, could later develop significant syndromes, ranging from breathing problems, insomnia, muscle pain and even the development of diabetes and severe nervous system problems.
According to these data, out of about half a million Israeli children who have already been verified in Corona, tens of thousands of children may suffer from these effects, and the government's duty is first and foremost to protect the children.
But the rate of immunization of children in the country is not enough.
If you want to vaccinate more than a million children aged 5-11 as soon as possible, a much greater effort must be made, and vaccinated en masse in schools - even if it involves a confrontation with the top officials of the Ministry of Education.
I already fulfilled my duty to protect my children, when my 9-year-old daughter Alona received the first vaccine yesterday at the Clalit vaccine complex in Raanana.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you find an error in the article, we will be happy for you to share with us and we will correct it
