Want to tour Israel? This is the coronavirus czar's plan
Travelers entering Israel from “green countries,” those that have a low number of infected people per their population could enter without being tested.
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANEl Al Israel Airlines planes are seen on the tarmac at Ben Gurion International airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel March 10, 2020.(photo credit: REUTERS/RONEN ZEVULUN)Coronavirus commissioner Ronni Gamzu said that he has a plan for letting tourists into Israel and it sounds a lot like his “traffic light” program that divides cities by their infection rate and labels them red, yellow and green. In this case, the protocol for tourists would center on their place of origin.Travelers entering Israel from “green countries,” those that have a low number of infected people per their population could enter without being tested.People traveling from “countries in between” would require testing but not isolation.And those arriving from red zones would need both to be tested and to enter isolation.“The way to enter Israel should be by risk management,” Gamzu said Tuesday during a briefing for the foreign press in Israel. He spoke from the Shield of Israel headquarters at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer.But Gamzu cautioned that he has not yet presented this plan for approval and he does not envision opening the country to foreign tourism until a testing center is established at Ben-Gurion Airport, which he said he expects to happen in about a month.Earlier this month, the Israel Airports Authority published a tender for setting up a testing lab at the airport. The results of the tender are expected to be published on September 1. Travelers would be required to pay for their own screening.Transportation Minister Miri Regev spoke on Army Radio Tuesday morning and said that she had asked the Foreign Ministry to examine the possibility of working with Cyprus and Georgia to allow Israelis to enter, too. If so, then Israelis could travel to those countries and return without being required to enter isolation, as they are green countries.On Monday, Regev and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured Ben-Gurion Airport. Regev said that people mocked the idea that the skies would open by mid-August but, “yesterday, we were told 5,000 passengers traveled to Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece.”
