Students (illustrative)
Students (illustrative)iStock

Pediatrician Dr. Shani Idan Reuven on Monday morning told 103 FM Radio that in her opinion, Israel should wait to start the school year.

"Now it's already too late to put together a new plan for the coming week, but it's still not too late to save lives," she wrote in a post responding to the government plan. Her statement prompted 103 FM to call her for an interview, asking what, in her opinion, is problematic about the plan.

"About the post that I published just yesterday, we are receiving mostly supportive responses from parents. One of the reasons I wrote the post was that I received a lot of feedback from parents around me, both as a doctor and as a mother...who are really worried about sending their children to school," she told the radio station. "So, they need their elected officials to make the tough decision for them. That's one of the things I was trying to get across."

She added that the plan to rely on parents to test their children before school starts has several potential snags - the first of which is that not every parent will act responsibly, and even a small percentage of parents who are not responsible can cause outbreaks. But even if the parents do their best, she said, "if parents don't perform the test properly, we are going to miss a lot of cases and a lot of children will be infected, especially now, before the holidays."

"We expect a parent to know that his child was exposed to a confirmed [coronavirus] patient, and to test their children every day."

In her opinion, "it could be that in another month or two we will already have made progress towards approval for vaccinating younger children. I'm in favor. If it passes the approval and everything, then for sure [I'm in favor]."

"I see the children, I see the children's families. I'm always in contact with the families, in every one of the waves. I have no solution for my children, I have no idea what I will do with my children if they decide not to start school on September 1, but I still think this, because it's not correct, from the state's perspective, it's incorrect to start [the school year]."