Head of the national anti-corona campaign, Professor Ronni Gamzu, talks to Israel Hayom about how he plans to tackle community spread of the virus while allowing life to continue as normally as possible.
By Mati Tuchfeld, ISRAEL HAYOM
Professor Ronni Gamzu | Photo: Gideon Markowicz
It is hard to count the achievements of Israel’s new corona czar, Professor Ronni Gamzu: medical studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and in Tel Aviv, a specialty in gynecology, director of the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, former director general of the Health Ministry, and a senior health policy analyst for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Now he has taken on what could be the biggest job of his life. Shortly before midnight Wednesday, he received a phone call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who asked him to take on the unenviable role of coordinating the government’s war on the coronavirus epidemic in Israel.
For a month, the Israeli public has been hearing that the government was about to appoint a so-called “project manager” to overcome political chaos and restore sanity while properly managing the unprecedented healthcare crisis.
In his first interview since taking on this national mission, Gamzu told Israel Hayom that his approach to the issue “is to make every effort in the next three weeks to bring the ‘attack rate’ in Israel to under one, [meaning that every carrier infects one person or fewer] without a shutdown, without limiting our lives, our society, our livelihoods, or the economy,” Gamzu said.
Q: What do you intend to do?
“I want to devote a major effort to improving public outreach. The Israeli public needs to understand the situation, and we need to improve the public’s faith in the process of addressing the crisis.
“A second effort that is important to me is improving how we cut off outbreaks, which means increasing the number of tests and the amount of epidemiological research and the quality of quarantine. And a third focus is to adjust restrictions wisely to lessen the spread of the virus while being considerate of the public.
“In the broad sense, it’s going to be an Israeli startup; no country has managed to defeat the virus without a shutdown during community spread. But I believe that Israel can do it,” Gamzu says.
Gamzu is aware of the talk about the authority he has been granted. When asked whom he will be answering to – the prime minister, the health minister, or the Corona cabinet, he replies: “I work for the citizens of Israel. I report to everyone and for everyone.”
Q: But who actually gives you instructions?
“The Health Ministry director general, the health minister, the National Security Council, the cabinet, the prime minister. Everyone is above me and everyone respects my need for flexibility and my opinion.”
Q: What significant changes do you intend to make?
“I intend to bring all the experts to consensus on one professional opinion that will unite the public behind it, rather than the confusion that puts the public off. Also, shorter time for [processing] corona tests and epidemiological research.”
Q: What is your opinion about the controversial restrictions – on leisure sites, tourism, gyms, shopping malls?
“Right now we need as little closure as possible, and as few additional restrictions as possible. All of us need to be allowed to try and make changes without more major restrictions. The change is anchored in the public’s conduct, better cutoffs of outbreaks, enforcement, and our success will lie in doing all this while reducing restrictions.”
Another page on the BNS site reveals that, while deaths from COVID-19 and the over-all death rate did begin to rise sharply in late March, after the government declared a pandemic, it reached a peak in Mid-April and has been heading downward ever since. By the ninth week of the outbreak, around mid June, the number of CV-2 cases and deaths was no longer at epidemic levels. And it has steadily declined ever since. Also, the over-all death rate for this summer is the lowest in five years.Obviously “herd immunity” works. I hope Professor Gamzu has taken notice.
“This is from a more recent (July 10) bulletin from the British Bureau of National Statistics:
The number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 10 July 2020 (Week 28) was 8,690, this was 450 deaths fewer than Week 27.
In Week 28, the number of deaths registered was 6.1% below the five-year average (560 deaths fewer), this is the fourth consecutive week that deaths have been below the five-year average; the number of deaths in care homes, hospitals and other communal establishments were also fewer than the five-year average, while the number of deaths in private homes was 706 deaths higher than the five-year average.
Of the deaths registered in Week 28, 366 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the last 16 weeks and a 31.2% decrease compared with Week 27 (532 deaths), accounting for 4.2% of all deaths in England and Wales.
In Week 28, the proportion of deaths occurring in care homes decreased to 19.0% while deaths involving COVID-19 as a percentage of all deaths in care homes decreased to 5.8%.
The number of deaths involving COVID-19 decreased across all English regions, with all regions having fewer overall deaths than the five-year average, apart from the East of England, which had 2 more deaths.
In Wales, the total number of deaths was below the five-year average (6 deaths fewer) for Week 28 while the number of deaths involving COVID-19 decreased to 22 deaths registered (from 35 deaths in Week 27).
Of all deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 28, 63.5% occurred in hospital with the remainder mainly occurring in care homes (29.7%), private homes (4.6%) and hospices (1.4%).
The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 10 July 2020 (Week 28) was 9,919, which was fewer than the five-year average (by 587 deaths); of the deaths registered in the UK in Week 28, 388 deaths involved COVID-19.”
The Israelis should look at the British experience with COVID- 19 when deciding hope to deal with it. This is from a screen on the British Bureau National of Statistics:
“Between 7 March and 1 May 2020, a total of 130,009 deaths were registered across England and Wales; this represents an excess of 46,380 death registrations compared to the five-year average, and 12,900 of these deaths (27.8%) did not involve the coronavirus (COVID-19).
This article is based on 98.1% of the total deaths registered and 43,903 excess deaths, because a small proportion of deaths take longer than others to be fully coded and validated ready for analysis.
Non-COVID-19 excess deaths occur predominantly in older age groups, to a greater extent with increasing age, and especially for the frail elderly with underlying conditions; undiagnosed COVID-19 could help explain the rise in these deaths.
In the period from Week 11 (ending 13 March) to Week 18 (ending 1 May), over 8,000 fewer deaths were registered in hospitals than in the corresponding period in the weekly average, a decrease of 20.9%; in contrast, almost 11,000 more deaths were registered in care homes, an increase of 60.5%, and over 8,000 more deaths were registered in private homes in this period, an increase of 42.6%.
The largest increases in non-COVID-19 deaths compared to the five-year average are seen in deaths due to “dementia and Alzheimer disease” and “symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions” (the latter mostly indicating old age and frailty); overall, there have been 5,404 excess deaths (an increase of 52.2% on the five-year average) due to dementia and Alzheimer disease and 1,567 excess deaths (an increase of 77.8%) due to “symptoms signs and ill-defined conditions” from Week 11 (ending 13 March) to Week 18 (ending 1 May), which together comprise two thirds of total non-COVID-19 excess deaths in this period.
Deaths due to causes such as asthma and diabetes increased up to the week ending 24 April 2020 and occurred increasingly outside hospital; this could suggest a delay in care for these conditions is leading to an increase in deaths, although this rise could also be related to undiagnosed COVID-19.
Changes to registration processes implemented in the Coronavirus Act 2020 have led to an increased number of death registrations made by doctors, increasing registration efficiency overall; at present, it is not clear whether increased efficiency is a cause or result of an increase in weekly registrations, but some further effects may become apparent in the future for conditions where deaths have a longer registration delay.
There is not enough evidence to suggest the other theories investigated can explain much of the increase in non-COVID-19 death registrations; these other explanations were reduced hospital capacity and increases in deaths caused by stress-related conditions.”
The Israelis need to be careful that the emphasis on COVID-19 doesn’t lead to a neglect of patients with other illnesses, as apparently happened in England.
I hope he is serious. I think that there is no way to get through the CV-2 epidemic except by ending all oe nearly all restrictions on personal and business freedom. That s the only way that herd immunity can be achieved, and herd immunity is the only way to end the epidemic.