People seem to going absolutely bananas about an Israeli proposal to establish an age-based and points-based system for Coronavirus release.
Regretfully, I mistakenly characterized this as a "policy" as opposed to a "proposal" in a twitter thread that has absolutely exploded (nearly 700K views - completely insane).
Again, let me add the necessary caveats that I am CLEARLY not an expert on anything related to Coronavirus. That said, I think it's worth highlighting a view things:
1. Israel IS starting to come out of lockdown. News stories on that are easy to come by. The lockdown release is, of course, phased.
2. I think it's notable that the Israeli government appears to have set epidemiological criteria for what might trigger a return to more strict guidelines. The transparency is interesting and commendable. Here's the story: timesofisrael.com/300-new-sick-a…
3. A "points-based" approach was proposed by The Clalit Research Institute. clalitresearch.org
4. Clalit is the largest of the Israeli state-mandated health service organizations. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clalit_He…
5. The CRI proposal was reported on by N12 News. mako.co.il/news-lifestyle…
6. In brief, the proposal is that citizens could use a set of criteria coupled with their age to determine which risk group they are in and act accordingly.
7. As I understand it, the proposal is as follows: People over 70 are still on total lockdown and must stay home. People over 65 with any pre-existing conditions must also stay home.
8. (CRI proposal, continued:) People 50-69 must stay home if they score 2 points or higher on a list of risk factors. People aged 30-49 must stay home if they score 4 or higher on the same scale of risk factors.
9. (CRI proposal, continued:) The risk factors include: heart/blood issues, diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking for more than ten years, BMI>30, hospitalizations of any kind in the last three years (one point for each hospitalization).
10. What is important here, I think, is not the status of the proposal (which may or may not be adopted), nor is it the specific risk factors or age ranges. That's not the story.
11. What is important is the idea that individual citizens might be trusted by their government to score themselves according to a set of understandable criteria and that this might set the stage for some sort of phased return to normal.
12. This, coupled, with the idea (shared above in this thread) that the government would make public the epidemiological basis for relaxing/strengthening lockdown measures could set the stage for a "citizen-led" unlocking.
13. I think this is why the CRI proposal is so important - and I think it's why people reacted so positively to the original tweet - which, again, regrettably mistook this "proposal" for "policy" (which it most certainly is not, at least not yet).
14. What people seem to be reacting favorably to is the combination of (1) science/data-driven policy, (2) transparency, and (3) agency on the part of citizens. These, I would submit, should be the foundation of unlocking strategies around the world.
