The announced opening of Israel's borders to individual tourists, previously scheduled for July 1, has been postponed by at least a month.
This decision was made by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Minister of Health Nitzan Horowitz after analyzing the situation with the increase in the incidence of coronavirus and the spread of the Indian strain.
Israel is among the world leaders in terms of vaccination rates: more than 55% of the country's population (76% of the adult population) are fully vaccinated. About 81% of the adult population has received at least one dose of Pfizer vaccine, and children and adolescents are being vaccinated.
Refusal of the mask regime, as well as the penetration of the so-called Israel into Israel. “Indian” delta strain COVID-19, provoked a slight change in the incidence statistics in the negative direction. Over the past month, nearly 1,000 people have been infected with COVID-19, with half of them vaccinated with both doses of Pfizer, according to the country's health ministry.
As a result, the new Israeli government has decided to change the timing of opening the country to individual tourists. This applies to citizens of all countries, both vaccinated and not.
Russia is included in the list of countries with the highest threat level. This means that everyone arriving in Israel from our country will have to go through quarantine.
Only holders of Israeli passports and work visas can fly to Israel from Russia, everyone else must obtain a special entry permit from the Commission for Exceptional Cases. Also, Israelis are prohibited from traveling to countries with a maximum level of threat (South Africa, India, Russia, Mexico, etc.). An exception is made only for transit passengers (with a stay at the airport less than 12 hours) and who have received permission from the aforementioned commission.
In addition to postponing the opening of borders, Israeli citizens were warned that an increase in the number of new cases of COVID-19 infection will lead to the resumption of mandatory wearing of masks indoors.
All introduced restrictions will be regularly reviewed depending on the development of the situation.
Also, according to the new regulation approved by the Israeli Ministry of Health, from now on, for violating quarantine restrictions by a child under 12 years old, his parents (or guardians) can be fined up to 5 thousand shekels (approximately 111.5 thousand rubles). In addition, on the territory of the Tel Aviv International Airport. Ben-Gurion and other border points are prohibited from being without masks, and anyone (regardless of vaccination or past coronavirus) can be quarantined by the decision of competent health officials.
In addition, the general director of the Ministry of Health has the right to introduce a mask regime on the territory of any institution in the country.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett urged fellow citizens to temporarily refuse to travel abroad if they are not related to urgent matters and called the increase in the incidence in the country “a new outbreak.”
Experts assess the measures taken differently: some believe that the country's new government is reinsuring, others insist that the not fully understood properties of the “Indian” delta strain COVID-19 justify the actions of officials. In any case, none of them believe that vaccination did not protect the country from the epidemic: the number of re-illnesses after vaccination in Israel is much less than the level of vaccine effectiveness declared by the developers. British researchers previously reported that the Pfizer vaccine is 88% effective and protects almost 100% against severe COVID-19 when infected after vaccination.
