The cabinet was poised to announce Sunday the official decisions regarding the nationwide lockdown set for later this week in an effort to combat the surging coronavirus community spread. Days after the ministers adopted in principle a decision to force Israelis to stay at home for about a month, the government was set to specify the granular details of the special directive, just months after the first nationwide lockdown.
Under the emerging decision, it was understood that schools were to remain open until Friday rather that shut down even before the lockdown begins. This is designed to help working parents. Likewise, the government was expected to announce a series of measures that would help worshippers observe the High Holidays, which begin on Friday evening with Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year).
The measures, once passed in the cabinet, are expected to be fast tracked through the Knesset in the coming days.
As holiday celebrations under lockdown become a near-certainty, the number of active of symptomatic coronavirus carriers in Israel continues to rise, reaching 38,008 as of Sunday morning.
The Health Ministry reported Sunday that there were 1,056 COVID patients hospitalized nationwide, and the number of hospitalized patients listed in serious condition is at a new peak – 513, of whom 139 were on ventilators. Another 206 patients were listed in moderate condition.
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The percentage of positive test results also continues to climb, with 9.2% of the over 30,000 tests processed since Saturday returning positive results.
More and more COVID-19units are at or over capacity. Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon was at 112.5% capacity as of Sunday, whereas Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem was at 107.69%.
The number of COVID-19 deaths nationwide stood at 1,108 as of Sunday morning.
On Saturday evening, the Health Ministry reported that only 2% of Israelis live in cities, towns, or local authorities coded "green" under the traffic light system, down from 8% last Thursday.
Less than a week before Rosh Hashanah, 129,520 Israelis were in quarantine. Since July 1, nearly a million (978,000) citizens have been instructed to quarantine themselves after suspected contact with confirmed carriers, according to data the Health Ministry reported to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Committee chairman MK Zvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) has asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Defense Ministry, and the Corona cabinet to look into the possibility of shortening the mandatory period of quarantine from 14 days to 12, if individuals test negative on the ninth day in quarantine. Shortening the quarantine period by two days would save some 150 million shekels ($43 million) per month and half a billion shekels ($145 million) per year.
"Israel must update its quarantine policy as part of its exit strategy from the upcoming lockdown," Hauser said. "Keeping the mandatory quarantine at 14 days harms the public's trust and the Israeli economy. We cannot keep putting thousands of people in quarantine every day without a clear policy on the matter."
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Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging resolution on tackling the coronavirus pandemic Friday over objections from the United States and Israel, which protested a successful last-minute Cuban amendment that strongly urged countries to oppose any unilateral economic, financial or trade sanctions.
The 193-member world body adopted the resolution by a vote of 169-2, with Ukraine and Hungary abstaining. It was a strong show of unity by the UN's most representative body, though many countries had hoped for adoption by consensus.
The resolution, which is not legally binding, is the third and most extensive adopted by the General Assembly. A resolution adopted April 2 recognized "the unprecedented effects" of the pandemic and called for "intensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate and defeat" the new coronavirus. A Mexico-sponsored resolution approved April 20 urged global action to rapidly scale up development, manufacturing and access to medicine, vaccines and medical equipment to confront the pandemic.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
