As governments around the world rush to formulate policies for responding to the threat of pandemic, Israel’s policy has been among the more stringent: barring entry to residents of certain countries as early as mid-February, and imposing self-quarantine directives on citizens who have visited them. Yesterday, the quarantine was extended to anyone arriving in the Jewish state from abroad. Yair Schindel argues that Jerusalem has acted wisely:
Aggressive as Israel’s policy may be, it is without question the right one, and it will end up saving a lot of lives, as well as a lot of money. Its apparent overreaction—especially in forcing quarantine on relatively large groups—is a shining example of how to do health policy right.
The greatest danger to the population—and the economies—of countries affected by the coronavirus right now is not the mortality rate but the transmission rate. Until a vaccine is developed, the only treatment for the coronavirus is helping patients weather the disease, which involves, in the more difficult cases, hooking them up to a ventilator and isolating them in a hospital quarantine zone. Imagine if half the population of the country were exposed, 10 percent became infected, and 10 percent of those became acutely ill; could any healthcare infrastructure provide the tens of thousands of hospital beds—and ventilators—to treat these patients?
Thus the wisdom of the Israeli policy. Keeping potential carriers of the coronavirus under quarantine won’t prevent the complete spread of the disease in Israel, but it will slow it down, allowing the healthcare system to cope with the few dozen cases that might appear each week, instead of a massive influx of thousands or tens of thousands of patients at once. The former allows hospitals to properly treat coronavirus patients; the latter could potentially overwhelm the Israeli healthcare system.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israels-aggressive-response-to-the-coronavirus-is-actually-perfect/