The Health Ministry rolled out its lockdown exit strategy late Saturday night, detailing a gradual emerging from the measures limiting economic and public activity over four months.
According to Channel 12 News, if morbidity data supports rolling back the lockdown, the plan will be set in motion on Oct.18 and details target dates for the different stages of lifting the restrictions imposed – for the second time – ahead of the High Holidays in an effort to curb the coronavirus outbreak racing through Israel.
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The Health Ministry said that exiting the lockdown at this time could be considered as recent days have seen both the number of new cases diagnosed daily as well as the number of Israelis testing positive for COVID-19 steadily decrease.
According to the report, instating the first stage of the plan depends on the number of new cases per day dropping to 2,000. This will allow opening preschools as well as businesses that do not receive customers.
At this point, the limitation placed on traveling over 1 kilometer (about half a mile) from home will be lifted, as will restrictions placed on protests and family gatherings. Restaurants will be able to offer takeaway, as opposed to delivery only, and the Ben Gurion International Airport will resume operations in full.
Once the number of new cases drops to no more than 1,000 daily, the ministry will instate the second stage, currently slated for Nov. 1, will see the first-to-fourth elementary school grades resume classes. Synagogues services will reopen and elective medical procedures would be able to resume.
The third stage of plan, slated for mid-November – assuming the daily number of new corona cases drops to 500 – will see retailers with in-store customers open, as well as gyms and shopping malls.
Once the daily tally of new virus cases drops to 250), which the ministry said could happened by late November, restaurants and cafés will be able to resume operations in full, as will various leisure venues.
The Health Ministry has set no specific daily tally to mark the fifth stage of the exit plan, saying only it is likely to take place in late mid-December. The fifth state includes allowing pools, hotels and guest houses to reopen.
The sixth stage, slated for late-December, will see museums and entertainment venues open and allow the resumption of group sports.
Next, in what the ministry believes will be early January 2021, the education system will resume in full, and in the final and eighth stage, in late January, audiences will be allowed at sporting events, clubs and bars.
Channel 12 News reported that Education Minister Yoav Gallant has stated that plans to fight to reopen schools as soon as possible, arguing that it has been proven that the student body has little to no effect on morbidity.
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