The challenges of exiting lockdown in Palestine - online workshop, 4th June 2020
On the 4th of June, Forward Thinking and the Order of Malta convened a workshop between doctors from the Palestine Medical Relief Society, Nablus Municipality, doctors from Gaza, and Dr. Rainer Loeb, Professor Paolo Palombi, and Professor Lucio Rovati.Rainer Loeb is an Anesthesiologist dealing with COVID-19 and Chief of Medical Doctors for Malteser Hilfsdienst. Professor Paolo Palombi is Director of the Dept. Biomedicine & Prevention University of Rome Tor Vergata. Professor Lucio Rovati is Visiting Professor of Pharmacology University of Milano.As countries around the world move to ease lockdown restrictions, this meeting provided an opportunity to share insights from the Italian and German experience, as health professionals in the West Bank and Gaza begin to manage the impacts and risks of lessening restrictions.Doctors were able to provide an update on the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. They explained that lockdown restrictions were now easing and that rather than a lockdown of the full region, localised restrictions would be put in place if there were outbreaks in specific area. However, while such developments may reduce the economic harm of Covid, they need to be accompanied with clear mechanisms to swiftly detect and contain new cases of the virus if they are to prove sustainable.