IDF preparing ‘coping strategies’ to deal with pandemic

The Israel Defense Forces is preparing “coping strategies” as it gears up for continuing to face the coronavirus pandemic for months to come, the military spokesperson says.

“In the past week, we’ve formed a number of teams under the deputy chief of staff to look at dealing with the coronavirus for the next few months. For how many months? I don’t know,” IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman says.

“In the IDF, we don’t talk about an exit, but coping,” he says, referring to a number of government proposals to “exit” the current situation into a more normal routine.

Speaking to reporters, the spokesperson notes that the military was starting to ease some of the restrictions put in place on its troops by releasing them home beginning Sunday for three to four days of rest.

Zilberman says this is a “very complicated logistical and medical operation,” as the IDF must try to prevent the troops from contracting the coronavirus while on leave and ensuring that any soldier who did so would not infect his or her comrades when they return.

The military hopes this latter goal will be accomplished by bringing the soldiers back gradually in so-called capsules — self-contained shifts of troops — so that if one of them did contract the disease, the other capsules would not be at risk of infection.

The soldiers would remain in these capsules, not interacting with the others, for the full incubation period of the virus, before being allowed back into normal, albeit restricted, contact with one another.

According to Zilberman, 131 soldiers or civilian employees of the IDF are currently sick with the coronavirus, while another 42 had the disease but recovered. All of them displayed only light symptoms. Another roughly 1,600 people in the military are in quarantine.

— Judah Ari Gross