A month-long coronavirus lockdown will cost the Israeli economy between NIS 15 and 20 billion ($4.3 to $5.7 billion), the country’s Finance Ministry said over the weekend.
A senior ministry official stressed that the estimate did not include compensation for businesses that are likely to go under, or unemployment benefits the state will have to pay tens if not hundreds of thousands of Israelis who will again be let go or placed on unpaid leave.
The overall economic impact of a lockdown during the High Holidays is expected to be particularly serious as this year many of the holidays fall on weekends, meaning they would have had minimal impact on economic activity.
If the lockdown is extended beyond the holidays, it could cost the state another NIS 6 billion ($1.7 billion) a week.
The Treasury prefers instating a policy of increased enforcement in accordance with National Coronavirus Project coordinator Ronni Gamzu’s “traffic light system,” whereby only areas classified as “red” due to high morbidity would have to shutter businesses.
The ministry also supports keeping daycares and elementary schools open for first through fourth grades, to allow parents to continue working.
{JNS}
{Matzav.com}
“But there’s a more fundamental point that I want to make sure have time to address and that is this idea that somehow has evolved that we must stop cases. That was never the policy, that should never be the policy when you have an infection that 99% of people have no problem with. It’s no big deal if low risk people get the infection….It doesn’t matter that young healthier people get the infection. In fact there’s a positive. Because we know the way to get immunity in the population is to have more people who are lower risk get the infection and become immune. ” Dr. Scott Atlas, MD, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, President Trump’s new Corona adviser