Israel has been hit by the second wave of the covid-19 pandemic so hard that it has had to tackle the economy completely, the so-called lockdown. Strict measures ordering people not to move a mile away from home are due to expire this week. It is not yet clear what will happen next. Whether the government will ease some of the measures.
Tomi Šved, a native of Humenné, Slovakia, lives in the suburbs of Tel Aviv and has lived in Israel since 1968. In a telephone interview, he describes that everything except pharmacies and some foodstuffs is closed in the country.
“There is limited movement, more than ten people must not be in one place. Veils are obligatory even outside. There are huge fines for not wearing it. The only exception is when someone goes for a run in the morning, but has to run alone,” he tells the Aktuálně.cz .
The Israeli cabinet took drastic measures on September 18 after the number of people infected with coronavirus began to rise sharply. Schools are closed, while banks have remained open. “We have slight reasons for optimism, but it is too early to say that the measures have worked,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter.
The Ministry of Health has prepared an eight-point plan, which, according to the daily Haaretz, is to last until February. Each phase takes about two weeks. Two numbers play a decisive role in the transition between the individual phases: the number of newly infected and the reproductive number R, which indicates how many other people are infected by one infectious person. If the number of newly infected falls below 2,000 per day and the R number reaches 0.8, disintegration will begin on Thursday or Sunday at the latest.
“The curve has been declining for the last two to three days, but the numbers are still high. But quick tests are being done. The result is not expected in two days, but it is known right away. explains Tomi Šved.
Insulation in hotels
The proposal to isolate some infected people in hotels, recently put forward by the Czech Minister of Health Roman Prymula, is already working in Israel. According to Tomi Šved, staying in hotels is paid by the state.
The main problem in managing the epidemic in Israel is the ultra-Orthodox community. Part of the regulation rejects and does not comply with it, in addition, its members live in large families in small flats. It is in this community that the disease is spreading the fastest and most.
“Israel is a very heterogeneous country. There are people from Russia, the Czech Republic, Morocco, India, simply from different parts of the world. They all have certain customs and live a lot within their communities,” Šved said, adding that ultra-Orthodox Jews are a specific group. resident. “The most radical of them do not actually recognize the state, so they do not even intend to follow its regulations. Although they take help from it,” he adds.
According to him, it is also a political problem. “The police will not intervene against these ultra-Orthodox, who do not respect the regulations. Why? Because they represent an influential electoral group and would no longer vote for those parties who are now in government. That is a problem in Israel, politics is mixed into decisions to be made. professional basis, “says the Israeli Swede.
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At the same time, the Jewish Ministry of Finance proposes that the government allow companies that do not have contact with customers or that employ less than ten people to resume operations. The Cabinet has previously rejected the possibility of partial closure of outbreaks in which the disease spreads rapidly. “Israel is a small and densely populated country. Local closure would not work here,” a government source told Reuters.
According to the Sunday balance sheet of the Ministry of Health, more than 290,000 people have been infected in Israel’s 9 million people since the beginning of the epidemic, and 1980 died.
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