No going back to pre-coronavirus world, top security official says

After the current coronavirus pandemic is over, Israel will find itself in an “entirely different” world, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat says in a briefing to cabinet minister.

National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat speaks during a press conference about the coronavirus COVID-19, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on March 25, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

According to Ben-Shabbat, who is coordinating the various government agencies’ response to the pandemic, the current policies aims at achieving four things: slowing the spread of the disease; improving emergency preparedness as the pandemic rages on; creating conditions to return to normalcy and, finally, a “slow, careful and gradual return to a routine that is entirely different from anything we knew before.”

The slow return to pre-COVID-19 days will take place “only after Passover and only after the preparations have concluded,” Ben-Shabbat says.

“We’re still in a dangerous area. All it takes is one day like Purim, or one [other kind of mass] gathering, in order to fail to thwart all our efforts, and therefore we are obligated to continue with the existing limitations and follow all instructions.”

— Raphael Ahren