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Yesterday afternoon the Israeli government imposed a new series of travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, becoming one of the first countries in the world to decide on a new confinement after those that occurred in spring around the world. The restrictions will take effect from 2:00 p.m. on Friday, September 18, that is, at the beginning of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and will last until October 11. The decision had been in the air since Thursday, September 10, that is, since the Israeli ministers that make up the coronavirus committee had approved the establishment of a new lockdown at the suggestion of the government working group, after a significant increase in cases recorded in the last two. weeks.
“For three months I tried to avoid a lockdown,” Yuli Edelstein, the coalition government health minister headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “I did everything I could to make sure we were living with the coronavirus, with the necessary rules. But because of Given the circumstances that arose, we had no other choice. ”Netanyahu, leaving for the United States where he will celebrate the normalization of relations with Bahrain, at a press conference held shortly before leaving, admitted that the new measures” will require a very high price. high “by the Israelis.
There was talk of drastic measures again, especially after the data that emerged last week, in which daily cases exceeded four thousand times twice: enormous numbers for a country of nine million inhabitants. On Wednesday, September 9, the day before the task force recommended a new shutdown, the Health Ministry said that 43,455 tests had been performed the previous day, with a positive rate of 9 percent. A very high figure that suggests that the positives are even more than those identified. In fact, WHO has estimated that an effective indicator for determining whether a given country is conducting an acceptable number of tests is to stay below 5 percent positive swabs for two consecutive weeks.
There are currently about 500 people in serious condition, and the country’s hospitals, especially those in the north, have warned that in the coming weeks they could have difficulty managing common, coronavirus-positive patients, if infections continue to rise.
The increase in infections is not due to a single reason: according to some, the hasty reopening of schools and shops already in May has to do with the large pockets of the population living in vulnerable conditions, such as Arab communities or ultra-Orthodox Jews, have to see. , and a very confused management on the part of Netanyahu, who already struggles among other things with his corruption trials, complicated foreign policy maneuvers and huge protests against him.
One factor that some associate with the new increase in cases is the opening of schools, which were restarted in Israel on September 1: according to data released by the government cited by Haaretz, 40 percent of those newly infected are under 19 years of age, while a month ago they represented less than 30 percent.
According to the rules decided yesterday, schools will close while the new restrictions last, as well as stores and restaurants. Israelis will not be allowed to leave their homes more than 500 meters, unless urgently needed. The public administration and the main private sector companies will remain open, but with many restrictions. Prayer for the various Jewish holidays in the coming weeks will be allowed only to groups of ten people in the “red areas”, where the data on the infection are highest, which can reach 25 in the areas of lower risk.
The decision to impose new restrictions was not unanimously shared within the government. Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman, head of the far-right religious party UTJ, resigned in controversy with restrictions on group prayers, while Labor Minister Itzhik Shmuli explicitly opposed a new lockdown, citing potentially disastrous consequences for the national economy. During yesterday’s Council of Ministers, according to a reconstruction published by the newspapers, Netanyahu would have invited Shmuli and the other dubious ministers to “behave like leaders” and make necessary, if unpopular decisions.
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