The traffic light model created by Corona Czar Prof. Ronni Gamzu will go into effect on September 1, pending its approval Monday by the Corona Cabinet. The model seeks to reduce morbidity in the country using a differential strategy, dividing the campaign according to municipalities, with uniform rules of conduct and restrictions adapted to the morbidity situation in each municipality. At its core, the Gamzu strategy transfers a large part of the treatment of the disease from the state to the local authorities.
The new plan, which was revealed for the first time Sunday morning in Yedioth Ahronoth, divides the State of Israel into 250 local municipal authorities. Each municipality will receive a weighted score that will determine its traffic light color for a period of two weeks: green, yellow, orange or red.
Every two weeks, the colors of each municipality will be updated on the basis of the status of the pandemic within its boundaries and the restrictions there will be adjusted accordingly.
The color for each municipality will be determined based on a formula that will include three parameters: the rate of new patients; the rate of positive tests; and the rate of increase in morbidity – up or down.
An application will alert users regarding the traffic light status of the municipality they have just entered.
A preliminary classification of the municipalities conducted last week, ahead of the debate and the vote in the Corona Cabinet, shows that almost half of the municipalities in Israel are green.
The red list includes 23 municipalities, which are, by and large, Haredi and Arab.
The model encourages conducting a high number tests by each municipality, because it allows for an improvement in their ranking only if there has not been a significant decrease in the number of tests. As President Donald Trump put it last month on Fox News: “Every time you test, you find a case and it gets reported in the news: We found more cases. If instead of 50 [million], we did 25, we’d have half the number of cases.” Well, Czar Gamzu will not accept fewer positive tests if you’ve been cutting down on the number of tests you’re running.
“The measure with the greatest weight is the rate of positive tests, in order to prevent a situation where people are not tested enough and produce latent morbidity,” Prof. Gamzu explained. “A mayor wishing to improve his city’s rating on the traffic light chart will have to make sure his residents are checked even in cases of mild symptoms.”
In addition, in some of the municipalities, corona test mobile units will reach people’s homes.
The grade and color given to each city will determine the level of activities that will be allowed there, and those will be adjusted every two weeks.
Some of the activities: education, transportation, jobs and mass sporting and cultural events will still require approved at the national level. But the local routine of everyday life will be determined according to the color of the municipality. And so, activities in synagogues, mikvahs, restaurants, fairs, indoors cultural events, hotels, open markets, cafes, and swimming in pools will be approved according to each city’s rating.
Each municipality will be provided with assistance to meet its efforts to reduce morbidity.
“Close contact with the Home Front Command will allow for epidemiological tests and investigations and the transfer of patients to hotels,” Gamzu said. “In the event of an outbreak, the mayor will arrange for a drive-in coronavirus testing facility to be constructed with the tests being sent to the labs managed by the Home Front Command. This way it will be possible to attack a certain area where a spike in the disease has been recorded.”
The process of cutting the contagion chains will be conducted nationally by the Home Front Command, but some of the investigations will be conducted by the municipalities themselves. Cities that want to take matters into their own hands will have to conduct the enforcement in their own territory, working closely with the police chief and increasing enforcement patrols. The municipal inspectors will have to deal less with the distribution of parking reports and more with the enforcement of the Purple Tag.”
Businesses in Israel that have been found to be following the health ministry’s guidelines for operating during the pandemic are awarded the Purple Tag which they may post to encourage customers to come in.
According to Gamzu, the work of local authorities will also be based on reports from residents, who will take the initiative to warn city hall about violations of the guidelines.
“As soon as you see a revelry going on near you, pick up the phone to the municipal hotline and update them,” the Corona Czar explained, adding: “Whoever ignores such behavior and does not warn about it will be an accessory to the harm inflicted on his own neighborhood.”
The traffic light outline was discussed in the Corona Cabinet last Thursday but was not approved—for the third time—due to the objection of Haredi Ministers Aryeh Deri and Yaakov Litzman regarding prayers in synagogues. In response, Gamzu has now announced that he was working to create a model that would allow prayer in “capsules” in large synagogues.
“State restrictions have so far been set according to the average morbidity in the whole country,” Prof. Gamzu. Explained. “This disrupts the routine of life in the cities where closure is not required, as well as the economy. Once the outline is approved, each city will act according to its level of morbidity, and will be incentivizing to reduce its morbidity. Red cities will operate under very restrictive conditions.”
“This is an opportunity for all cities to take matters into their own hands,” the Corona Czar stated.