Israel, a trail-blazer in suppressing the rise of COVID-19 in its population by means of a concerted vaccination programme, has found itself on the back foot with an alarming rise in infections. It’s a case that demonstrates that the path back to ‘normality’ might not be as simple and straightforward as had been imagined.
The containment measures were expected to lead to a speedy re-opening of Israel’s very important tourism industry, and also to free up local residents by allowing them to pursue their businesses and leisure pursuits as they had before the pandemic.
But the country has suffered a brace of setbacks, and all the signs are pointing to a disrupted tourism summer, both for inbound tourism into Israel and for Israelis wanting to travel abroad.
According to local news website, Times of Israel, the government last Wednesday postponed the planned July 1 reopening of Israel’s borders to vaccinated tourists. And last week, newly elected Prime Minister Naftali Bennett urged Israelis to avoid nonessential international travel.
There are concerns over COVID-19 infections coming from foreign countries and health officials have largely attributed new infections to the more infectious Delta variant brought from abroad by infected travellers.
Children are considered particularly vulnerable, as most are not vaccinated. Israel has begun offering vaccines to children aged 12 to 15 (previously not included in the national vaccination roll-out plan). Now, health officials are advising parents to have their children inoculated.
Other measures being imposed include the wearing of masks indoors, including in every part of Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. Israelis will also now have to sign a declaration before flying abroad, promising they will not travel to several countries designated by the Health Ministry as ‘high risk’. This list includes South Africa – others are Ukraine, Ethiopia, Brazil, India, Mexico and Turkey.
A Health Ministry official said plans were afoot to increase enforcement for those required to quarantine.
The head of public health in the Health Ministry, Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis said the highly infectious Delta variant “entered Israel because people didn’t keep quarantine instructions”.
Professor Nachman Ash, Israel’s foremost authority on Coronavirus, who is also known as the Coronavirus Czar, blamed the screening at Ben Gurion Airport and also pointed to quarantine-breaking individuals as the reasons for the renewed outbreak.
“Our goal at the moment is first and foremost to protect Israeli citizens from the Delta variant that is raging across the world. At the same time, we want to minimise the damage to daily life in the country as much as possible. We therefore decided to act as early as possible… to not pay a heavy price later,” said the Prime Minister.
Dr Alroy-Preis said the Health Ministry was “preparing for all scenarios”.
