School (illustrative)
School (illustrative)iStock

Professor Sigal Sadatzky, Head of Public Health Services has said that she does not believe school will resume after the Pesach (Passover) holiday.

Speaking to Ynet, Sadatzky said, "I don't believe studies will resume after Passover. I don't think studies will resume so fast."

"I can tell you that we will try to loosen [the lockdown] after Passover. We will immediately try to make the situation easier if possible, but it all depends on what the situation is.

"I think that the actions that we have taken until now are proving themselves. We've seen that the rate of infection in Israel is under control, to a certain degree, but this is a daily issue and it doesn't end with one action or another. So we're not running a marathon. We'll see what the situation is after Passover, and we'll issue guidelines accordingly."

Regarding how Israel will return to routine, she said: "I see the exit strategy not as a continuous line which continues in one direction, but like waves, which will be more severe and less severe, each time according to the situation."

"We're still not using an exit strategy. From the moment we decide that we're able to use an exit strategy, it won't be a continuous line of 'reopening everything,' it'll be opening more things, and opening less things. It could be that some [places opened] will be local, and other things national. We need to see how the disease develops here, how people act, and act according to the statistics."

Regarding the number of coronavirus tests conducted each day, Sadatzky said: "Already on Sunday we managed tens of thousands of tests, which was our goal for this week. It's true that we won't be conducting 30,000 tests by Friday, because we had a technical issue, but we're doing everything we can to increase the number of tests."

"We can't do more than this. The Defense Ministry is helping, the best and top experts in Israel are helping us acquire supplies and are trying to find technological solutions. The problem is not lab capacity right now, but other issues. Without all the issues together, there are no lab tests. At any rate, we have the highest rate of testing per capita of any countries we've seen so far.