TY - JOUR
T1 - Measures to Limit COVID-19 Outbreak Effects among Military Personnel
T2 - Preliminary Data
AU - Segal, David
AU - Rotschield, Jacob
AU - Ankory, Ran
AU - Kutikov, Sergey
AU - Moaddi, Bian
AU - Verhovsky, Guy
AU - Benov, Avi
AU - Twig, Gilad
AU - Glassberg, Elon
AU - Fink, Noam
AU - Bader, Tarif
AU - Karp, Erez
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - Introduction The COVID-19 outbreak posed a threat to the readiness of military forces as well as their ability to fulfill missions. Seeing that military forces have been encountering similar challenges, we found it eminent to share the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Northern Command’s (NC) preliminary experience. Materials and Methods We retrospectively summarized the actions that were taken by our team, focusing on 18 battalions at the Israeli NC. These actions included promoting a series of organizational changes in terms of social distancing and medical regulations as well as working to strengthen medical leadership through designated video meetings with medical commanders across our organization. Meetings included relevant clinical education, updates, and leadership building. These actions and others were aimed to increase our influence on the decision-making processes. While we conducted real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction SARS-CoV-2 laboratory tests for soldiers who were suspected to have COVID-19 (those presenting with compatible signs and symptoms after having been exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 patient), we were not able to screen healthy populations, nor did we have serum antibody serologic tests available during the study period. We reviewed the COVID-19 outbreak national data, obtained from Ministry of Health publishings and the IDF databases. Data were included from February 26th, 2020 (day 0, first COVID-19 patient in Israel) to April 19th, 2020 (day 53, about 1 month after most of the COVID-19 regulation were issued in the NC). Results The mean age of the battalion soldiers was 21.29 ± 4.06 (range 18–50), 81.34% male. Most restrictions were issued on day 18. On day 53, 98.85% of the personnel in the battalions were kept active and asymptomatic in their units. Conclusions Despite the limited availability of laboratory testing for COVID-19 our actions enabled us to lead a strict risk-management policy while maintaining most of the available workforce.
AB - Introduction The COVID-19 outbreak posed a threat to the readiness of military forces as well as their ability to fulfill missions. Seeing that military forces have been encountering similar challenges, we found it eminent to share the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Northern Command’s (NC) preliminary experience. Materials and Methods We retrospectively summarized the actions that were taken by our team, focusing on 18 battalions at the Israeli NC. These actions included promoting a series of organizational changes in terms of social distancing and medical regulations as well as working to strengthen medical leadership through designated video meetings with medical commanders across our organization. Meetings included relevant clinical education, updates, and leadership building. These actions and others were aimed to increase our influence on the decision-making processes. While we conducted real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction SARS-CoV-2 laboratory tests for soldiers who were suspected to have COVID-19 (those presenting with compatible signs and symptoms after having been exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 patient), we were not able to screen healthy populations, nor did we have serum antibody serologic tests available during the study period. We reviewed the COVID-19 outbreak national data, obtained from Ministry of Health publishings and the IDF databases. Data were included from February 26th, 2020 (day 0, first COVID-19 patient in Israel) to April 19th, 2020 (day 53, about 1 month after most of the COVID-19 regulation were issued in the NC). Results The mean age of the battalion soldiers was 21.29 ± 4.06 (range 18–50), 81.34% male. Most restrictions were issued on day 18. On day 53, 98.85% of the personnel in the battalions were kept active and asymptomatic in their units. Conclusions Despite the limited availability of laboratory testing for COVID-19 our actions enabled us to lead a strict risk-management policy while maintaining most of the available workforce.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090519277&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/milmed/usaa112
DO - 10.1093/milmed/usaa112
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C2 - 32484225
AN - SCOPUS:85090519277
SN - 0026-4075
VL - 185
SP - E1624-E1631
JO - Military Medicine
JF - Military Medicine
IS - 9-10
ER -
