Coronavirus: Netanyahu’s reopening plan can’t be sure – official

A prominent official of the health ministry said Thursday that the timeline of a five-step plan to reopen the country cannot be promised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a press conference the day before.

“I cannot guarantee that we will reopen in another month,” Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the ministry’s head of public health services, told military radio, adding that he is responsible for factors such as the morbidity rate.

According to Netanyahu’s plan, during the second week of March there will be further openings in the education system and in the commercial sector, by the end of the month all Israelis will receive a vaccine and in April the country will return to normal life.

When asked about the reopening of Ben-Gurion Airport, Alroy-Preis said as soon as a system is in place to implement the compulsory quarantine for those returning from abroad, more people will be allowed to enter.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health and the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee signed a pilot project to offer returnees to part at home with an electronic bracelet.

4,298 Israelis tested positive for the coronavirus the previous day, the Ministry of Health reported Thursday. While the number of cases remained high, the favorable rate marked the lowest level in more than a month, with 5.9% of the 75,836 tests administered returning a positive result.

The death toll was 5,673.

A 26-year-old man who fell in his home and was pronounced dead at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem was found positive for the virus after doctors learned that he and his entire family were alone, Israeli media reported . According to a relative, he did not suffer from any pre-existing condition.

As for the vaccine, some 4.6 Israelis have received the first sighting of the coronavirus vaccine and the second had 3.2 million.