Professor Nachman Ash will replace national coronavirus coordinator Professor Ronni Gamzu as head of Israel's battle to stop the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein announced in a joint statement Tuesday.
Starting Wednesday, Ash will begin shadowing Gamzu.
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Ash, 59, is a member of the Department of Health Systems Management at Ariel University and until recently served as head of Maccabi Healthcare Services Division of Medicine. He received his MD from Tel Aviv University in 1986 and completed a residency in internal medicine at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in 1997.
Professor Ash served as surgeon general of the IDF and retired at the rank of brigadier general in 2011. He also holds a degree in Medical Informatics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health, Sciences, and Technology, as well as an MA in political science from the University of Haifa.
Ash steps into the role as the number of Israel's new cases continues to drop. A total of 36,605 coronavirus tests processed in a 24-hour period from Monday to Tuesday morning identified 780 new cases, a 2.1% positive rate, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday morning.
The new cases bring the number of Israelis who have contracted the virus since the start of the epidemic in Israel to 311,149.
As of Tuesday morning, there were 12,733 active or symptomatic patients, and 869 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized nationwide. Of the hospitalized patients, 467 were listed in serious condition, with 193 on ventilators – the first time since the end of September that there have been fewer than 200 COVID-19 patients on ventilators.
The death toll from coronavirus has reached 2,452. A total of 295,961 people in Israel have recovered from the virus.
In light of the drop in the number of new cases, the Corona cabinet has agreed to send schoolchildren in the first to fourth grades back into the classroom and given a green light for businesses to resume operations next week. This includes hair and beauty salons, which are under certain restrictions.
In a lengthy meeting, Finance Minister Israel Katz demanded that city shops be allowed to reopen.
"We forwent the shopping malls and shopping center to allow small businesses to operate. We need to allow the very least possible. This is also the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz," Katz said.
However, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein insisted that it was too soon to allow businesses to reopen, and threatened that if the proposal were brought to a vote, he would vote against it.
"I don't understand on what basis you're saying that we need to think about what to reopen," Edelstein said in the meeting.
"National Security Advisor [Meir Ben-Shabbat] is saying we still don't know [how things are going] and I hope it won't be anything bad. Still, right now we don't know what effects there will be from the first lifting of the restrictions," Edelstein said.
"I don't understand why we're rushing to open. It's dangerous, and we are managing risk," the health minister added.
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Meanwhile, a report from the IDF's Intelligence Corps published Tuesday indicated that Israel might be losing some momentum in its recent progress to stop the spread of coronavirus, even though the average number of new confirmed cases per week and percentage of positive test results continue to drop.
The report warns that the results of the restrictions lifted in a cabinet decision on Oct. 18 could be assessed only on Wednesday.
