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Israelis shop at the market in Ramle, central Israel, that is partially closed due to coronavirus restrictions, December 23, 2020. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Health Ministry early Thursday announced a third national lockdown to take effect Sunday in order to curb a resurgence of COVID-19.
The new lockdown will begin Sunday at 5 p.m. and last for at least two weeks. The restrictions will be extended for an additional two weeks if morbidity rates do not decrease significantly.
The closure was announced in a joint statement from Netanyahu and the Health Ministry. It said the government had agreed to the restrictions “in principle,” but that the full list of regulations was still awaiting final approval from government ministers.
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An Israeli nurse prepares a COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Jerusalem on December 23, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
The Health Ministry gave approval Thursday to healthcare providers to extract up to six doses from vials of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine rather than the five currently permitted, according to Hebrew media reports.
The reported change could significantly increase Israel’s supply of the vaccine, allowing it to immunize a greater number of people. If all Pfizer vials set to reach Israel in the coming months have the extra dose, it could mean an additional 800,000 people can be vaccinated.
Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration confirmed some vials of Pfizer’s vaccine were overfilled and contained enough doses for seven people. It told health officials to use every full dose possible “given the public health emergency.”
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Some 40 Israelis are feared to be carrying the new, more infectious strain of the coronavirus that originated in Britain, the Walla news website reports.
The report says a Health Ministry lab has received genetic results that are different from those seen with the normal variant.
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Hundreds of Israeli travelers who returned from the United Arab Emirates in recent days landed in Israel only to find out that their suitcases stayed in Dubai, Channel 12 news reports.
The report says the reason is a malfunction at the Dubai airport.
“I returned from Dubai on Tuesday, and I and half our flight simply haven’t gotten our luggage,” says traveler Nicole Roitman, adding that airport staff told her there was no point in making inquiries since “nobody will answer.”
Additionally, hundreds of travelers who landed today from Dubai are refusing to be taken to coronavirus hotels, as required in new guidelines that came into force yesterday, in scenes described by Hebrew-language media as chaotic.
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Moshe Feiglin, who mounted a surprisingly successful Knesset bid in the April 2019 election before losing ground in the end and narrowly failing to enter the parliament, announces his Zehut party will not be running in the upcoming poll.
In a statement, Feiglin laments that the Israeli political arena has become too fixated on issues related to personas rather than ideas, leaving no room for ideology-oriented parties.
Zehut party leader Moshe Feiglin at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Kfar Hamacabiah in Ramat Gan announcing Zehut’s withdrawal from the September elections, on August 29, 2019. (Flash90)
“The people politics has completely erased the ideas politics,” he writes. “We are left only with the crippling stalemate between ‘yes Bibi’ and ‘not Bibi,’ and as a result, it is impossible to implement any meaningful policy in Israel.”