© Reuters
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Under the leadership of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and senior officials and advisers, Israel conducted an exercise simulating a crisis situation with a variant of COVID-19 that does not respond to vaccines and attacks mainly children. Authorities say this is a hypothesis for the “next war”, and the main findings will be shared next week with foreign leaders such as Boris Johnson.
The command center was in the government bunker, which withstood a nuclear attack. Almost no one, including the prime minister, was aware of the details of the scenario of an imaginary 10-week crisis beginning around the December holidays.
It is a fictional strain of Omega that does not respond to vaccines given this year. Characteristically, it makes children ill, who have so far been spared the coronavirus, and causes them to be hospitalized en masse and schools closed.
“What we’ve learned is that if you prepare for the next war, not the previous one, the next pandemic, not the previous one, you’ll be better prepared. The main lesson is, ‘Act fast and decisive,'” Bennett said. for Reuters.
As part of the exercise, the prime minister ordered all children – including his four – to stay in their homes while the government closed its borders and communicated with Palestinian authorities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jordan.
“Unlike military exercises, these are pandemics. They are not secret. On the contrary, we want to share this information,” Bennett said.
According to him, the authorities can operate indefinitely from the underground National Management Center, built a decade ago. Under the administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country has three times blocked its normal activities. Bennett now claims that Israel is coming out of the wave of the delta option without a lockdown and has shown that with proper management, the pandemic can be defeated.
About 500 new cases a day are currently reported, up from several thousand two months ago. Mass vaccination (over 4 million people with a completed cycle) is underway in open schools and the economy.
“The most frightening thing is not the current situation, but the one we don’t know about yet. As the delta option suddenly sweeps everything away, other, more deadly, more contagious and vaccine-resistant options may emerge,” Bennett explained.
That is why today it has been trained how the ministries react, whether the hospitals are ready for extreme pressure and whether the scientists closely monitor every option that appears.
The readiness of the systems of healthcare, justice, economy, internal security, travel and communications was assessed, including what specific policies to follow for gatherings, quarantine, public events, tourism, etc.
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