Israel’s coronavirus cabinet approved on Tuesday night a full lockdown beginning on Thursday at midnight for two weeks in an effort to stem the soaring infection rate, with daily virus cases exceeding 8,000 for the past two days and hospital wards overflowing with seriously ill virus patients.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released a statement saying that “we are amidst a global pandemic spreading at record speed with the British mutation. [The mutation] has arrived in Israel and is claiming many lives. The experts all agree that we must immediately implement a full lockdown in order to save lives.”
All schools will be closed with the exception of special education facilities. Retail stores that provide essential products or services will be allowed to remain open but all other stores must be closed and even workplaces that don’t receive the public will be reduced to 50% capacity.
Gatherings are limited to five people indoors and ten outdoors. Israelis will be restricted to one kilometer (0.6 miles) of their homes and will be forbidden to enter other people’s homes. Public transportation will be reduced to 50% capacity.
Israelis who purchased airline tickets prior to the lockdown will be allowed to leave the country but no new tickets may be purchased, with travel abroad permitted only for essential purposes. Only Israeli passport holders will be allowed into the country.
It is possible that the lockdown may be extended longer than two weeks if the infection rate does not drop significantly during that time.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
All Schools To Be Closed They should have never been reopened:- Shame on משרד החינוך for having pushed all schools to reopen immediately this past אייר thereby quite literally having murdered thousand of Israelis.
How many times do they have to do this for them to realize that lockdowns don’t work. I mean is this the third lockdown or fourth? I lost count already
@147 In America, there are experts in various fields (disease control, mental development, etc) that have said from the beginning that closing schools (at least in America) was much more problematic. This isn’t such a simple, easy issue to decide on.