Health Minister Yuli Edelstein has called on Finance Minister Yisrael Katz to provide full compensation to businesses that have been affected by the coronavirus crisis and not just out-of-pocket expenses.
Speaking Sunday at the opening of the new IDF coronavirus ward at Rambam Medical Center, Edelstein said: “We as a government must make sure that those business owners and people who have lost a lot will receive not only out-of-pocket expenses but real-time, full compensation.”
Edelstein said: “I intend to fight for it. There cannot be a situation where we demand restrictions and then self-employed and private businesses have not received the required compensation. I will not let this situation continue.”
The health minister also spoke about the exit strategy, which is reportedly to be rolled out in nine stages that could begin as early as this Wednesday. However, a full exit from the lockdown and reopening of the economy is expected to take as long as four months, with two-week intervals between each stage to monitor the impact on the rate of infection.
The stages as they are being considered now are as follows:
Stage 1: Open preschools, customer-facing businesses in full, the airport, beaches; allow takeaway; remove the 1-kilometer travel restriction
Stage 2: Open grades one through four, synagogues, alternative health services
Stage 3: Open customer-facing businesses stores, malls, marketplaces and gyms
Stage 4: Open restaurants, coffee houses and attractions
Stage 5: Open hotels, bed and breakfasts and pools
Stage 6: Open museum and leisure activities; allow group sports to operate
Stage 7: Resume classes for grades five through 12
Stage 8: Open event halls, amusement parks
Stage 9: Allow audiences to attend group sporting events; open clubs and bars
“I will present an outline of hope,” Edelstein said of the plan. “The beginning of a gradual, safe and responsible release of the economy that has the potential to keep the morbidity rate low… It is possible to do so provided we are not dragged away by populism.
“Whoever comes out with calls to open everything immediately destroys the economy and the lives of human beings – of those who have suffered enough," he stressed. "It is not possible to open and within a few weeks bring about another lockdown.”
On Sunday morning, Knesset Coronavirus Committee chairwoman MK Yifat Shasha-Biton has called on the government to open up now and close only those areas with high infection.
“We need to open up now, not in a week,” she said in an interview Sunday morning with Army Radio. “There are restrictions that everyone knows have no epidemiological logic. Why wait? Society is crashing."