The economy might be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel as early as next week if a pilot testing program being launched by the health and defense ministries to conduct rapid COVID testing for public buildings proves a success.
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The "green building" pilot will take place in the Negev Center in Beersheba, which houses The Authority for Development and Settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev, the Israel Lands Authority, and the city's Sharia court. All three are deemed essential institutions and continue to operate during lockdown.
Under the pilot, all employees and visitors to these premises will be required to be tested upon arrival and receive results on their smartphone devices in just 10 minutes.
Employees and cleaning personnel will be tested every two days and will be required to follow all Health Ministry guidelines, including social distancing and limits to the number of people per room.
The pilot, a joint project by the Health Ministry, the IDF technological greenhouse, and Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center, which developed the rapid tests, is designed to experiment with a program that could potentially be expanded nationwide to allow businesses and other venues to reopen, putting the economy back on track.
In a related development, the Health Ministry is set to present next week an exit program from the current lockdown in an outline named "green badge." On Thursday, officials held several meetings with representatives from the leisure and culture sector in which several ideas were raised, including the possibility of opening cultural venues to people who can present proof of a negative COVID test taken within 48 hours.
Meanwhile, teenagers aged 16-18 will be able to get vaccinated starting next week, after Health Ministry Director-General Professor Hezi Levi received approval from the Vaccine Priorities Board on Thursday evening to go ahead with the campaign.
These teens are high school students in 11th and 12th grades who are slated to take matriculation exams this year, then be drafted into the IDF. The health and education ministries as well as healthcare providers have begun logistic preparations to vaccinate the high schoolers.
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