New lockdown not inevitable if Israel buckles down, outgoing health czar counsels

Outgoing Health Ministry director Moshe Bar Siman-Tov tells Kan radio that he was surprised by the speed at which Israel seems to have been hit by a second wave of the coronavirus. But he adds that a new lockdown is not a given.

“We can still be relatively optimistic and flatten the curve without a lockdown. We need to keep the guidelines, especially regarding masks. There was an issue in keeping people aware that the corona was not a one-off that came and went. We need to convince the public of how important it is. I think the public, and everybody, was quite tired.”

Sunday is set to mark his last day on the job, after Prof. Chezy Levy was confirmed as his replacement earlier in the day.

Bar Siman-Tov defends his decision not to fire deputy Itamar Grotto, who was exposed as giving a billionaire a pass to ignore virus rules, saying that Levy will deal with it and “there are facts which are still not clear.”