The decision of Israel’s coronavirus cabinet to reopen the economy on Sunday was approved despite the objections of senior health officials, including coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash, who told ministers on Monday that if anyone had told him two months ago that the economy would be reopening when the infection rate and the number of seriously ill patients are so high, he would have called them crazy.

“An irresponsible opening of the economy will lead to another lockdown,” Ash warned. “By next week, we’ll have vaccinated three million people but that is only a third [of Israel’s population] – far from herd immunity.”

Prof. Ran Balicer, who heads the advisory panel to the coronavirus cabinet, told Ynet on Monday that the government had already tried the “trick” of reopening the economy despite the disapproval of health officials and it always results in an infection spike.

“The government has twice tried the trick of ignoring the recommendations of the Health Ministry, opening up everything at once instead of gradually and hoping it will end well. Both times it did not end so well, the disease spiraled out of control. And we never tried to emerge [from a lockdown] with 5,000 new infections a day and hope for the best,” Balicer said, reiterating Ash’s message.

Balicer also urged Israelis to get vaccinated. “This is the country that has the greatest accessibility to vaccines in the world today, and I have a hard time dealing with the fact that there are about 500,000 people aged 40-60 who have not been vaccinated – 30% of ventilated people are in this age group. Once you get infected, one in 30 people will develop a serious illness.”

There are currently 570,000 Israelis over the age of 50 who have not yet been vaccinated.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)