Defense Minister Benny Gantz tells the IDF Home Front Command to ready to operate hotels for coronavirus patients and those unable to quarantine at home through 2021, saying it appears unlikely the COVID-19 pandemic will be over by then.
“The working premise needs to be active until the end of 2021,” Gantz says in a Zoom video call with commanders in charge of the hotels. “The entire work year next year will also revolve around the crisis. Unfortunately it’s hard for me to see this ending before then.”
Maj. Gen. Uri Gordon, the head of Home Front Command, says the greatest challenge facing his unit is getting people to come to the hotels.
“At the end of the day, you’re uprooting a person from his home for a relatively long period, about a month, and this leads to many concerns and objections from the sick and the quarantined,” he says. “However, very large efforts are being made and the machine is already well oiled.”
He adds that over 400 people check into the hotels each day.
The Dan hotel in Jerusalem, which was turned into a quarantine facility, on April 13, 2020. (Photo by Yossi Zamir/Flash90)
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