Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said that the country could have to take steps toward a closure within the next three or four days if the coronavirus does not stop spreading.”If we can take steps before the closure, we will not get there, if we sit idly by in the coming days, reality will bring us to a closure,” he said following a tour at Hadassah Medical Center, Ein Kerem. “I think we have three or four days left to see if there is any result to those minimal steps – much less than we wanted. If a medical miracle happens to us and we see a change in trend, then maybe we won’t get” to a closure either.”I say this in a simple way: From my first day in office I said and did everything not to allow us to get to a general closure,” he continued. “Whenever there is any restriction, a broad public protest against that restriction begins. We must understand once and for all: if no additional tools are available to us, we will eventually have a total lockdown.”
Edelstein also referred to Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s demand to transfer powers from the Health Ministry to the defense establishment to manage the coronavirus crisis:”Unfortunately, I have been hearing in recent days a question that just makes my lips smirk. Who is actually in charge? Who is in charge? Who is running the event?”I want to tell you in the simplest and clearest way: I am responsible for an event, I have the authority, and I take all the responsibility,” he continued. He said that he and director-general Chezy Levy are working in close cooperation with the Home Front Command, National Security Council, the IDF, other ministries and the prime minister. Nonetheless, “the responsibility remains mine, that of my director-general and the staff of the Heath Ministry. That’s how we see it. “I do not have time for politics,” he concluded.
Edelstein said that at a meeting on Tuesday of a new, special advisory team on coronavirus he raised several points of action: improving the financial situation of the hospitals and hiring more doctors and nurses to serve the country’s rising number of patients. He promised that Israel would see hundreds of new positions in its hospitals soon, as it works to prepare for the winter when the country’s citizens could suffer from flu and coronavirus simultaneously.
He said that he and Levy will attend a meeting on Thursday with Finance Minister Israel Katz to help determine how to better support the country’s nursing system, which is reportedly collapsing.
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