Coronavirus ward
Coronavirus wardRambam hospital

Dr. Yakir Kaufman, head of public health management at the Health Ministry, spoke with Arutz Sheva on Sunday regarding the drop in morbidity statistics for coronavirus seen in recent days, and expressed extreme caution regarding the conclusions possible to draw.

“There were less tests administered during the Sukkot festival,” he pointed out. “What I think is that in the coming days, we’ll be able to get a clearer picture of where we’re holding. The situation does appear to be stabilizing, but it’s not yet possible to know if that’s a distortion due to the decreased level of testing seen last week.”

Kaufman added that any easing of lockdown restrictions would be dependent on a reduction in the rate of contagion in any given area, and, most significantly, on the percentage of confirmed virus carriers in that area. “It will be possible to identify areas where the rates of contagion drop more, and where the regulations will be able to be adjusted accordingly,” he said.

He noted that, “We aren’t going to be emerging from lockdown like the last time around [in spring, when the restrictions were removed very fast]. Everything is going to happen very gradually to enable us to analyze the impact of each step we take. Meanwhile, we need to be meticulous in adhering to the guidelines, which are very simple to follow. People need to wear face masks that cover both the mouth and the nose. No social gatherings, restrictions on transportation… if we do all this, then it will enable us to come out of lockdown that much more quickly.”

Dr. Kaufman stressed that the coming winter will be a worrying time for the country. “It’s going to pose a double challenge – with both coronavirus and influenza,” he said. “We hope very much that we’ll manage to get through it somehow, but we’re going to have to be ready for every eventuality. After all, in regular years we have overcrowding in the hospitals. And it’s impossible to know if or how the two diseases may interact.”