Professor Dror Mevorach, head of the Internal Medicine Department at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, responded Wednesday morning to his colleague Professor Ronni Gamzu's statement calling on the Israeli government to remove all coronavirus restrictions.
Prof. Gamzu is a former coronavirus czar, as well as the Director General of Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center.
Speaking to 103 FM Radio, Prof. Mevorach said, "Look, first of all we need to respect his statements, but Ronni often is ahead of his time, as we say. I think that the problem is not yours - the problem is mostly the elderly and the population that is more vulnerable to illness, which can still catch it and still pay a high price for it."
The interviewer then interrupted, saying that masks "are a personal issue" and suggesting that the vulnerable simply wear masks, similar to how Asians do when there is air pollution.
"There, it's a daily behavior," she said.
Prof. Mevorach said, "That's true. And in the East there is another very interesting trait I learned during my visit there, and that is that people, if they are sick and cannot stay at home, they walk outside with a mask so that they do not harm someone else."
"I think that this culture is something we are very far from, and so I think that this thing, that Professor Gamzu proposes, will be more gradual. It will happen eventually, but in a more gradual fashion, and we are not completely there yet."
"There is definitely a portion of the population that has already understood, decided, call it what you want, that coronavirus is no longer here. That is not completely true."