Prof. Gabi Barbash: "The numbers are heavy. I fear we will go into a long lockdown in the winter"'

July 17, 2020   

Prof. Gabi Barbash, former Director General of the Ministry of Health, addressed this morning (Friday) on Nissim Mashal's program on 103FM the government's decision to impose new restrictions, some of which will go into effect today at 5:00 PM, and the dramatic increase in the number of infected people. How did he manage to get a prestigious degree without preparatory school or prerequisites? The secret is inside Will closing on weekends solve the problem? ""The government decided not only that, they made other decisions regarding preventing gatherings. In my opinion, this is the most important element, it really has the ability to solve the problem, I think. Was this addition needed or not? I don't know, and it will only apply next week.". Yes, only from next week. ""So I really hope that the coming week may show us that this can be avoided, but we really need to wait a few more days and see the effect of the steps taken a week and a half ago.". Yesterday, at the Corona meeting, the Prime Minister angrily told the ministers, 'You are blind, if this doesn't change, we are going to have a full lockdown.' What needs to happen to prevent a lockdown? ""The numbers need to stop growing, we are at almost 2,000 new patients every day, and of course it is worrying. I am not underestimating this, God forbid, I am the last one to underestimate this. The numbers are growing, they are heavy, what this means is that dozens of seriously ill patients will be there every day in two or three weeks. We are already on track today for 30 seriously ill patients per day, which will be added next week.". What does this mean? What should be done? ""Obviously, steps need to be taken, and steps have been taken, preventing gatherings, closing every place where gatherings can take place in an enclosed space, that's the most important step. Is there a need for a weekend lockdown that will prevent people from socializing so that they don't infect each other? We may need that, I don't know. We'll know in the coming days, if the situation doesn't change in the coming days, they'll have to take that step too, right?". Look how confused the public is, the guidelines change every few hours. Doesn't lack of trust bother you? ""There is an objective and subjective answer here. Objective – in the situation of this virus, we don't know many things about it, about its behavior, why it reacts, to which parades it will react correctly or incorrectly. So there is an objective dimension here in our ability to predict, we took the right steps and to know that we took the right step, and we don't know that either until two weeks have passed. Subjective dimension – when I see how this government, the board of the State of Israel that includes 36 people, everyone has something to say, and everyone wants to contribute, and influence, and this board is transmitting messages that are not of a board that works in a unified manner, in addition to everything we talked about what they didn't do in the health system, it is clear that this creates distrust and it is not the ideal situation to manage such a complex crisis.". If the government fails, the situation continues. ""This is what we have, right Nisim? This is what we chose, so we have to live with it and apply the pressure that we can apply within the very great limitations of the media to change things, and that's it. Make sure everyone behaves correctly, because this too is in our hands. In today's data, I think anyone who wants to protect their lives will go out less, and move around less, because there are a lot of people who can infect them. Most people who get infected don't know who they got infected from. When the concern from above is not properly organized, let's take care of ourselves properly.". Regarding the beaches, a person walking on the beach, what should he be afraid of? ""I don't think the beaches should be closed, I said that yesterday. There was a similar story months ago in California. The governor of California made a decision that he wanted to close the beaches, they came to him in a public campaign and proved to him with signs and examples that there were no infections on the beach, he dropped this issue and they didn't close the beaches in California, after a serious public debate. I think that once you are in the open air, you don't need to restrict. The price of restricting on the beach versus the risk of getting infected on the beach doesn't justify it. But I would expect Bat Yam, and Tel Aviv, and the local authorities, to deploy inspectors to prevent overcrowding on these beaches so that people don't sit on top of each other. But if people keep their distance, in an open area, I think the risk doesn't justify closing the beaches.". What will happen in winter? The predictions are dire. ""One issue related to the winter is the return of school in September or October. I know that Gallant is handling this, I had a conversation with him about it. They understand the significance, they drew a lesson, so to speak, from the return of full classes at the end of this school year. I know that they are working on it and I trust Gallant.". But in terms of the public? ""I was talking about education. I'm going back to the public, winter will present us with a problem of mixing the flu and the coronavirus. The way the ministry is currently preparing, I'm afraid we're going to have a long winter lockdown.". Wow. You left me speechless. ""As it stands now, we have maybe two months to prepare for the month, as it currently looks in terms of insights, internalization, preparation, capabilities - we will spend the winter in lockdown.".