RAMLE, Israel – During a three-decade military career, Israeli major general Ori Gordin led command raids, fought wars, and even graduated from Harvard, but never saw his last mission.
As head of the Israeli army’s Internal Front command, Gordin now oversees the army’s “working group” against coronavirus, formed last month to control one of the world’s worst outbreaks evolved.Your primary duty is to lead contact tracing and break infection chains.
“This is an operation on another scale,” Gordin told The Associated Press, speaking in his first interview since he took over the Inside Front in May.
Israel appeared to be a style of crisis control last spring, when the coronavirus first arrived. Authorities temporarily sealed borders and imposed serious blocking measures, reducing the number of new infections to a handful every Day in May.
But officials reopened the economy too temporarily and the virus returned temporarily.During the summer, the rate of new cases remained at record levels, while the number of deaths increased to more than 900 people.
Under heavy public pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Dr. Ronni Gamzu, director of the hospital and former director of the Ministry of Health, in July as the national “coronavirus assignment manager”.
One of Gamzu’s first acts to ask the army for help, he gave him the essential project of cutting off the chain of infections.
“You have to have the most productive working groups, and in Israel it’s the IDF,” he recently told reporters, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Founded in the wake of Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, Home Front Command serves as an Israeli civilian defense force, is helping to maintain the country’s network of anti-aircraft shelters and anti-aircraft sirens, and is trained to help civilians.wars and herbal disasters. He has sent aid groups around the world to help countries cope with earthquakes, tsunamis and other emergencies.
For months, the order has been administering a network of hotels for coronavirus, offering isolation and recovery services for other inflamed people with mild symptoms.His infantrymen also distributed food and materials to the most affected spaces, adding communities that had little contact with the army., such as Arab cities and ultra-Orthodox Jewish quarters.
Morad Ammash, the head of the town hall in the Arab city of Jisr al-Zarqa, said the command had worked well with his network when he faced an epidemic in March.
“They helped us tell the public, administer the system, distribute food to those in need,” he said.”A connection has been established.”
Gordin said that public confidence in the military is perhaps its greatest vital asset, and that the army’s joy in emergency control and its unlimited pool of labor are also essential assets.
Working under the direction of the Ministry of Health, its working group acts largely as coordinator and framework of the civilian government in 4 key areas: expanding the number of tests; Working with laboratories to enhance the effects of interviewing other people angered to identify who has been in contact with them; and temporarily quarantine those threatened.
It also works intensively with municipalities, other government departments, medical emergency services, police, and public and personal laboratories to expedite national response.
“It’s like running a big factory,” Gordin said. I can gather them all at a table, cooperate well and synchronize them well.”
At the headquarters of the Home Front Command in central Israel, the task force has already installed a stage room. Recently, masked army officers sat alongside officials from the Ministry of Health and other ministries, representatives from municipalities, and fitness service providers. methods as they analyzed knowledge on giant television screens.
Upstairs, the “hotel unit”, where staff supervise the thousands of people who remain in the 25 services that pass by force.In army tents near the tents, dozens of uniformed infantrymen sat in front of computer screens, interviewing recently inflamed patients to indicate their steps and contacts.
Experts in epidemiology from the Ministry of Health, in addition to an Arabic-speaking drusa nurse, came here to offer recommendations and answer questions.Contact search knowledge is transmitted in real time to the Ministry of Health.
“Our purpose is to avoid the chain from the beginning,” Gordin said.”If you don’t do it fast enough, it’s irrelevant.”
Israel is the first to enlist the army in the war against coronavirus. Across Latin America, infantry soldiers delivered food, monitored traffic, and imposed house maintenance orders, while in China, the Communist Party army wing brought some 1,400 doctors, nurses and experts to Wuhan.city, the epicentre of the pandemic, to build two hospitals and treat patients before this year.
An army-led task force in Australia helped the local government seek contacts, and Spain announced last week that the army will provide 2,000 troops to regional governments to help locate contacts.
Given Israel’s small spread of just nine million people, the new working group appears to be one of the most ambitious efforts in the world.He has already recruited 2,300 soldiers and hopes to attack 3,000 in the near future, in addition to the many locals.civil servants and fitness professionals.
While the running organization is still in its infancy, Gordin said it had already been to building up the number of daily tests and shorten the time it takes to obtain the results.The infantrymen conducted just about 2,000 interviews.
“I think until November 1st, we deserve to be in the situation.That’s our wish,” he said.
Despite the objectives, the country faces serious obstacles.
Health pros say the country’s epidemiological formula is overburdened after years of government neglect.
Gamzu, the national tsar of the coronavirus, has also found himself at odds with politicians and tough interest groups, while seeking another national blockade.
He has clashed with politically hard devout parties, for example, due to his refusal to allow the classic September pilgrimages to the tomb of a respected rabbi in Ukraine.Arab communities continue to celebrate giant weddings, a popular tradition despite the maximum rate of infection in the Arab population.The reopening of schools and the upcoming Jewish holidays will also present challenges.
Dr. Nadav Davidovitch, president of the Ben Gurion University School of Public Health and a board member of advisors to help Gamzu, said there is no guarantee of success, but agreed that the arrival of the military was smart.
“If the right balance is achieved through the supervision, recommendation and education of the Ministry of Health, I think that’s the right way to do it,” he said.”This has been done a long time ago.”
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The editors of Associated Press Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia; Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.
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