The requirement to wear masks indoors will be dropped on June 15, provided that the morbidity in the country remains low, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein announced on Sunday.
For the first time since the pandemic began, no new local corona cases were identified in Israel on Saturday.
“In light of the prolonged low morbidity, I would like to announce here that consulting with Health Ministry’s senior officials, with the approval of Prof. Chezy Levy, we decided that if the morbidity remains low until June 15, we will allow masks to be removed even indoors,” said Edelstein, at an event to honor health system staff for their work fighting the pandemic.
“This is a reality we did not expect to reach at this point, and we made it.”
According to the ministry’s update on Sunday, no corona carrier who became infected in Israel was identified on Saturday, as all four virus carriers who did test positive were people coming from abroad.
While traveling is still far from the pre-pandemic levels, several thousand people arrive in Israel every day, mostly through Ben-Gurion Airport.
People who enter the country are required to test upon arrival, and if they are not vaccinated or recovered, can take another test to shorten the mandatory quarantine from two weeks to 10 days.
While only 15-20 new cases have been identified daily on average in the last few weeks, cases coming from abroad have often come to represent a significant rate of them: out of 30 new cases identified on Friday, 11 came from abroad; two out of 10 on Thursday; and seven out of 13 on Wednesday.
The number of tests performed during the weekend is significantly fewer than on weekdays – 7,000-10,000 compared with 25,000-30,000 – but hundreds and sometimes thousands of cases were also identified on Saturdays at the peak of the pandemic.
While the current figures represent a fraction of the number of corona patients who emerged every day at the peak of the pandemic, health officials have reiterated on several occasions that their goal is to keep in place the corona restrictions at the borders.
Active cases in the country also continue to drop – as of Sunday morning, they were 230. At the peak of the third wave in the winter they reached 88,000.
In addition, only 37 patients are in serious condition. At the peak of the pandemic, they were over 1,200, placing unprecedented pressure on the health system.
“What is amazing about these numbers is the fact that they are plummeting while the economy is fully operational,” Edelstein said.
The minister also denounced the violence against medical staff carried out by people who oppose vaccines. He also promised that they will work to maintain the 600 new doctors that were hired to strengthen the health system in the fight against the pandemic.