Coronavirus commissioner: 'Cannot loosen restrictions any further'

“The disease is spread by the invisible patients - those who do not feel sick.”

By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
Israeli Police patrol as they reinforce Covid-19 restriction in the Old City of Jerusalem during a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. October 12, 2020. (photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Israeli Police patrol as they reinforce Covid-19 restriction in the Old City of Jerusalem during a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. October 12, 2020.
(photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Coronavirus commissioner Prof. Ronni Gamzu, in what is likely to be his last public briefing, said that the downward trend in morbidity has ceased and that as many as 600 to 700 new cases are being diagnosed a day.
He said the reproduction rate, the R that indicates how many people one sick person infects, reached a low of 0.6 but is slowly climbing as the country returns to routine and the education system has opened.
On Thursday, the Health Ministry said the reproduction rate stood at 0.92.
He then warned that the country has arrived at a roadblock and cannot loosen restrictions any further if the situation does not turn around.
“I don’t know what the solution is,” Gamzu said. “Most infections occur at the stage when an individual does not know he is sick. When we are asymptomatic.”
He said it could happen at any place and that a person of any age can infect.
“The disease is spread by the invisible patients - those who do not feel sick,” he said.
But he noted that the highest areas of infection are presently within the Arab sector.
“There is an outbreak in Arab society,” he said.
While Gamzu was speaking, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that the Ministerial Committee for Declaring Restricted Zones approved extending the closure on the Arab town of Majdal Shams until Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. It also declared the Arab town of Masada a restricted zone for five days until Nov. 11 at 8 a.m.
“We are talking about a ‘travelling disease’ - that travels between municipalities,” he said.
Some of the areas do not meet the criteria for being named red zones, but there is discussion that the criteria might be tweaked in order to include more areas and stop the spread of infection.
Gamzu called on the Arab sector to stop traveling between Palestinian areas A and B and Israel, because he said these visits were spreading infection. He said the National Security Council and the Health Ministry were under discussion about whether or not to make such travel forbidden.
Regarding the education system, he said that officials were working together to find a solution to the issue of after-school programs and also ways to allow students of all ages to learn in their classrooms at least some times.
"We are trying to find a solution that everyone can agree on,” Gamzu said. “We want to do this carefully, especially when we know that the current outline has hit a dead end.”
He said that the Health Ministry encouraged teachers to be screened for the virus but only 20,000 out of 70,000 took advantage of the free testing.
"I want more to come to be tested,” he said. “The test is simple.”
Gamzu, who has been in his role since August, will return to his full-time job as director-general at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center on Nov. 15. He will be replaced by Prof. Nachman Ash.


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