By: Aryeh Savir
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a video conference from Jerusalem with European leaders and discussed with them the challenges and cooperation between countries in dealing with the global spread of Coronavirus.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban participated in the conference, initiated by Netanyahu.
“We can help our countries and help each other by sharing information and coordinating certain activities,” Netanyahu said.
He offered three suggestions for cooperation. The first is in the area of widespread testing, and primarily changing the rate of the testing.
Netanyahu spoke on Sunday with Vice President Pence about sharing technology on the issue and even the development of home screening.
Follow-up talks were held between the Israeli team dealing with the Coronavirus and the American team. The talks were held to “advance technological and scientific cooperation on the issue of the Coronavirus and to discuss joint ways of dealing with the challenges posed by the virus,” Netanyahu’s office stated.
Efficient screening “is good for health and it’s very good for our economy because we are going to run into serious problems of mass quarantines and you can’t run economies that way,” he noted.
He invited them to share their technology because “it’s not about who gets there first, but about how we all get there first.”
The second point is related to transport and the ability to international assure supply chains.
“We can get very quickly into a position of shutdowns of aircraft or a constriction of air travel. That is happening as we speak,” he said, proposing that Europe establish “safe hubs and safe planes for travel.”
He suggested that Europe designate specific airports “clean” of Corona.
The point third is the exchange of best practices. “We each have our own experiences. We see what works, what doesn’t work and we can trade with each other,” he explained.
They agreed to appoint officials who would handle the inter-governmental collaboration.
Israeli researchers at MIGAL Institute last month said that they have made a breakthrough on the way to developing an effective vaccine against Coronavirus and expect it to be ready in the coming weeks.
The novel Coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 109 countries around the world.
At least 110,100 cases of Coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, including at least 3,800 deaths. Some 62,300 have recovered.
(TPS)
