Israel closes down flights to keep out new mutations
ISRAEL will ban passenger flights in and out of the country from tonight for a week as it seeks to stop the spread of new coronavirus variants.
“Other than rare exceptions, we are closing the sky hermetically to prevent the entry of the virus variants and also to ensure that we progress quickly with our vaccination campaign,” Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in public remarks at the start of a cabinet meeting.
The country’s borders have largely been closed to foreigners during the pandemic, with only Israeli passport holders allowed entry.
The announcement came as a study in Israel reported a 60 per cent drop in over-60s being hospitalised with coronavirus three weeks after being vaccinated, in the latest sign that the jabs are effective.
According to Maccabi, an Israeli healthcare provider, there was a significant decrease in hospitalisations from day 23 onwards, which was two days after patients received their second jab.
Yuli Edelstein, the Israeli health minister, had told the BBC’S Andrew Marr Show yesterday that its data suggested a first dose gave just 30 per cent protection from the coronavirus.
“We are just at the beginning of the [vaccination] campaign, we do see cases of people who, after getting the first dose, still get sick with the coronavirus,” he said. “At the same time there are some encouraging signs of less severe diseases, fewer people admitted to hospital after the first dose.”
Israel yesterday expanded its vaccination drive to include 16 to 18-year-olds in an effort to get them back in schools to take their winter exams on schedule.
‘We are just at the beginning ... we do see people who after getting the first dose still get sick with the coronavirus’
At least one dose has been administered to more than 25 per cent of Israel’s 9.25million population, with over 10.5 per cent having received a second dose.
The vaccine in Israel is now available to anyone over 40 or those aged between 16 and 18. The first jabs for that group came on Saturday. The winter matriculation certificate is needed for university and military admissions.
The nation struck a deal with Pfizer to speed up delivery of the vaccine so that all over-16s would be inoculated by the end of March in return for extensive data on its vaccination campaign.