In another effort to deal with the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Israel’s Ministry of Health, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and Israel's emergency service Magen David Adom (MADA) will begin asking citizens to answer a brief symptom questionnaire each day, the ministry of health announced Sunday. The questionnaire is anonymous and does not collect any identifying details such as names or telephone numbers, but does ask users to list what street they live on, without giving a house number.

An ambulance taking a corona patient to a hospital in Israel. Photo: Abigail Uzi

The health ministry intends to use the information from the questionnaire to examine which areas are experiencing an increase or decrease in the symptoms of the virus and how the disease spreads.

The questionnaire was developed for the health ministry by Jerusalem-based emergency room startup Diagnostic Robotics Ltd., in collaboration with the HMOs, MADA, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Founded in 2017 by Israeli entrepreneurs Yonatan Amir, Kira Radinsky, and Moshe Shoham, Diagnostic Robotics develops robots that use artificial intelligence to assess the urgency of each case and help doctors prioritize seeing patients. Before stepping down in October, Radinsky served as eBay’s director of data science and chief scientist in Israel. Shoham, a researcher at Technion Israel Institute of Technology’s mechanical engineering faculty, also co-founded surgical robotics company Mazor Robotics Ltd., acquired by Medtronic PLC in 2018 at a $1.7 billion valuation.