Bennett: Exit strategy faulty, there are not enough coronavirus tests

Bennett supported an aggressive reopening policy in order to mitigate the economic damage of the lockdown.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Defence Minister Naftali Bennett speaking at the annual memorial ceremony for soldiers whose burial place is unknown (photo credit: MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SPOKESPERSON'S OFFICE)
Defence Minister Naftali Bennett speaking at the annual memorial ceremony for soldiers whose burial place is unknown
(photo credit: MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SPOKESPERSON'S OFFICE)
The government’s path to exit the nationwide lockdown is based on a faulty estimation of how many people are infected with coronavirus, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett warned.
Bennett supported an aggressive reopening policy in order to mitigate the economic damage of the lockdown.
“The decisions [the cabinet] made were right, it could even be that we should have made them earlier,” he said. “It’s the right direction. There are things we may need to fix, and that’s okay.”
However, the minister warned that the measure of success for the exit strategy is based on a false premise, and Israel could be surprised by renewed outbreaks.
“The Health Ministry and National Security Council’s model is based on the number of sick people. This is problematic, because the number of sick people is a function of the number of tests,” Bennett explained.
At the end of March, Israel set a goal of reaching 30,000 coronavirus tests per day by April 10, but on the day on which the most tests were conducted, April 16, only 11,908 people were checked. On some days last week, fewer than 10,000 were examined.
“When we have more tests, we can open the economy in an aggressive way without any danger and without being surprised, and the moment there is an outbreak in a residential building or a school, you can go there [and close it] and not the whole city,” Bennett said.
Not only are there enough tests, it takes an average of four to five days to get results, and it access to them is not easy enough, the minister lamented, calling for family doctors to be allowed to write referrals for coronavirus tests.
“Once there is a big testing system, we won’t suddenly be surprised by an outbreak in Dimona or Kiryat Shmona or Dir el-Assad, because we will have sensors all over the country,” Bennett said.
If someone tests positive, they can then be isolated and the people who were in contact with him or her can be told to go into quarantine.
“We might not be able to find everyone in this way, but we can get 80% of them,” Bennett said. “We shouldn’t let 20 people who caught the virus turn into 2,000.”
Bennett suggested a different model for moving forward in an exit strategy, which was voted down. His model was developed by Hebrew University researchers, who suggested examining the number of people who are intubated. Unlike the number of people who have coronavirus, that is something the Health Ministry knows with certainty.
“If there is a daily increase of less than 4%, then the economy can continue to be opened, because the health system is not being overwhelmed. Under 7% means a freeze and over 7% means a rise” towards running out of ventilators, Bennett explained.