Decision on allowing tourists into the country expected next week
Number of serious coronavirus patients drops below 500
A detailed announcement about allowing vaccinated tourists into Israel is expected at the beginning of next week, a Health Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday, as morbidity in the country continued to decrease.
Israeli borders have been closed to foreign nationals for a year and a half – with very limited exceptions, such as first-degree relatives of citizens and tourist groups allowed under a pilot by the Tourism Ministry.
The Tourism Ministry is working on a plan to allow vaccinated tourists into Israel starting from the beginning of November. A spokesperson said that the proposed outline is currently being examined by the Health Ministry.
Inoculated tourists were supposed to be allowed in starting from July 1, but after the surge in morbidity the plan was postponed to August 1 and then put on hold.
The details of the outline are still being discussed but tourists will likely need to meet the criteria currently set for Israelis to be considered fully vaccinated – either two shots within the previous six months or a booster – and to be inoculated with a vaccine recognized by Israeli health authorities.
In September 2021, 34,500 tourists entered Israel, the Tourism Ministry said Wednesday. That’s 128% higher than the number of visits in September 2020, when the country was locking up due to the coronavirus pandemic, but 91.5% less than the 405,000 visitors in 2019, during the holiday season before the pandemic began.
Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett asked health officials to end isolation for schoolchildren exposed to a verified coronavirus case already next week.
“In light of the success in fighting the fourth wave – the numbers are falling every day – as part of the rethinking of our strategy, I want to find a solution to bring forward the exemption from quarantine for students in green cities as early as next week, without waiting until October 15,” he said, while speaking with the national team in charge of the fight against the pandemic. “The principle is this: tests instead of isolations.”
“I ask you to come up with solutions,” he said, addressing
health officials. “I want to give peace of mind to parents that they can go to work and send their children to school and end this period of uncertainty.”
According to the plan that has been discussed over the past two months, children are going to be tested regularly in order to quickly identify those who are infected and avoid outbreaks in schools.
In addition, if they are exposed to a verified case, students will be checked every day for a week – with a PCR at the beginning and at the end of the period, and rapid tests in between – and won’t have to quarantine unless they receive a positive result.
A pilot to test the feasibility of the outline – known as “Green Class” – has been carried out in a few schools around the country.
Cities and neighborhoods in Israel are labeled by the Health Ministry as green, yellow, orange or red based on their level of morbidity, rate of vaccination and other parameters under the “Traffic Light” system.
“At the request of the prime minister, the issue will be examined,” the ministry said after Bennett’s remarks. “In any case, it is necessary to complete the pilot in order to formulate a responsible and well-thought-out epidemiological recommendation. The professionals have so far worked to examine this issue in accordance with the decision approved by the cabinet.”
Health officials have been hesitant about the idea of canceling the isolation for students since the summer, when the topic became a matter of controversy between the Health and Education ministries.
As of Wednesday, some 75,000 students were in isolation after being exposed to coronavirus patients, in addition to another 18,000 who were infected with the virus, about half of the 36,000 active cases in the country.
At the peak of the fourth wave, over 40,000 schoolchildren were positive, as well as half of the 80,000 sick Israelis.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday night, the number of serious patients in Israel dropped below 500 for the first time since August. On Wednesday it stood at 487.
Some 2,502 cases were identified on Tuesday, with 2.3% of the 115,000 tests done being positive.
Speaking before the Knesset plenum, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz expressed satisfaction regarding the good trends, but said that even when Israel is past the fourth wave, all the infrastructures to fight against the pandemic will be maintained “so that we will be ready if, God forbid, there is another wave.”
“Unfortunately, none of us knows what the future will bring us and what we will need to do to react.”