Why Prof. Motti Ravid thinks it's actually good that young people are getting infected now

June 18, 2020   

Despite the increase in coronavirus cases in Israel, the government last night approved additional easing, including the opening of Israel Railways and the cultural sector. Professor Motti Ravid, director of a hospital, spoke today (Thursday) with Guy Peleg and Nissim Mashal on 103FM, and expressed support for the decision. Prof. Sadetzky announced that the second wave is here and the cabinet has convened and is releasing the train, theaters, shows, weddings - how is it going? ""I'm telling you, let's put it this way, write it down - exceptional. I support the government's actions in this case and I'm saying why. I don't know if this is a second wave, it's not a second wave, the pandemic is here. There was a decrease in the number of infected people because the public was careful to keep their distance, to wear masks, and people didn't gather. They opened up the economy, mainly opened up the education system, and the opening wasn't accompanied by enough information and perhaps enough enforcement, and the public is like any other public, by the way, this didn't just happen here.". But yesterday.. ""Let me finish, and then the infection started. The infection is currently overwhelmingly in groups of young people, who from an epidemiological point of view are good for them to get infected because slowly, maybe herd immunity will be created and we will see a decrease. In the meantime, what is happening is that the elderly have probably learned to be careful, and perhaps the young people are also respecting the distance from the elderly, because there are 10 times more sick people than there were two weeks ago, not sick people - they get infected, and there are no more sick people, or there are very few.". Aren't you excited about the figures of 300 patients per day? ""282 is also a function of the number of tests, don't forget. Since Minister Yuli Edelstein came in, the policy has changed. We do a lot of tests. We do a lot of tests - we discover a lot of carriers.". I don't know how to relate to the data because it's a result of the tests, right? ""You need to find a way because what you want to do, and it's not being done enough yet and I hope they will, but right now it's not being done enough, is when you find someone infected, check their environment, find contact cases, isolate them to reduce the spread further.". Still, as far as I understand, the answer given is not in a day but in three days. That is an unreasonable amount of time. ""That's right, and about that too, not a war, but we're talking about that and we've talked to everyone who wants to hear at the government levels, including the minister. I got the impression that he understands the problem well. I have no doubt that the current CEO understands the problem because he's a doctor, was a hospital manager and knows it very well. So we have to hope that there will be a change in that, because for now it's not good.". What is the red line for you where you would say you need to stop? ""I don't know if stopping is the solution, I also do in retrospect, do we assume so? That the stopping that was in the beginning was effective, there are many voices and I am too weak to express an opinion in this debate, but there are many who say that the stopping was excessive and it could have been different, but that is wisdom in retrospect. Today I don't think stopping is a solution, the solution is rapid detection, which is not yet done, and isolation of contact cases and if so, stopping - then on a spot basis. A neighborhood here, a neighborhood there, a street here, a street there. Not general because that makes no sense, and not even urban. "I mean, you find 50 people in a certain city? Today there are enough means to know where the people are and to close the place for a few days, until you locate and check and put them in isolation, and you don't need to close an entire city to solve a problem like this. "The more means there are, the bigger the hammer for tweezers, that is the method that should be.". There are two schools of thought. One, identifying red zones, outbreak hotspots, and focusing testing there. Second, we need to make points and try to conduct as many tests as possible of the entire population, regardless of the regions. ""I think everyone I know of the epidemiological people who deal with things supports the first method. The more detection, the more isolation, and red zones to try and find the centers of infection. For example, there is a center in south Tel Aviv. It was possible to isolate the area for a few days, do a mass of tests, locate most of the carriers, you will never locate everyone, isolate, go somewhere else. That's what needs to be done and that's what they will do, I suppose. "The fact that they opened the train is great news, I've been saying this for two weeks, because you can monitor the train so that it won't be too crowded and you can't monitor buses there that are packed like sardines. It's time to get back to life somehow and work intelligently and not in masses.".