With hundreds of new confirmed cases a day, Israel is in the midst of a new, accelerated, and dangerous coronavirus outbreak, one that could lead to a fourth wave of the pandemic in Israel in which the highly infectious Delta variant takes precedence.
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As we have seen in countries around the world, this variant, originally detected in India, is far more dangerous and lethal to the unvaccinated.
To prevent this latest outbreak from turning into a fourth wave, the government and the recently reinstated coronavirus cabinet must take significant and immediate steps to moderate and prevent a continued outbreak, in contrast with the hesitation and embarrassing weakness displayed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz thus far.
With the aim of thwarting a new outbreak, the coronavirus cabinet set to convene Sunday must show determination and strength, the likes of which Bennett promised us prior to his appointment as Israel's prime minister. Restrictions on entering and exiting Israel must immediately be put in place to prevent people leaving the country and mainly entering the country to the extent that this is possible.
We must also ensure the serious and massive enforcement of ascertaining quarantine by all those who return from overseas, something Israel has yet to do. Those who took advantage of the situation are to a large extent Israelis returning from overseas who ignored the rules and became partners to the outbreak when they sent their sick children to school.
Yet this will not suffice. The government must continue, and in fact relaunch, the campaign to vaccinate teens aged 12 to 15, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Israelis over age 16 who have opted against vaccination, thereby thwarting the national effort to rein in the pandemic. The Health Ministry and the four national healthcare providers must come to their senses and launch a massive and effective public relations campaign to convince all those eligible to be vaccinated to do so. In this manner, they will significantly increase the health defenses of Israeli society in its entirety.
The coronavirus cabinet must reinstate the green and purple pass programs so that indoor venues will only be authorized to allow entry to the vaccinated or those who have recovered from the virus. The cabinet must also reintroduce restrictions on gatherings in both open and indoor spaces. This may allow us a chance to correct the serious mistake made by the Health Ministry senior management when it arrogantly and recklessly rushed to cancel those restrictions, harming Israel's health security.
The cabinet must publish legal provisions and regulations, not guidelines, since Bennett's attempt to merely recommend mask-wearing was, as expected, miserable, causing informational and practical damage to the fight against the coronavirus.
Senior Health Ministry officials fear that absent immediate steps to thwart the pandemic, Israel could forfeit the excellent achievements and global advantage it secured in the fight against the virus.
The coronavirus cabinet, and Bennett in particular, must come to their senses and listen to the remarks he himself made throughout this pandemic.
Immediate action must be taken. There's no time to lose. Last week, we lost precious time because of the hesitation and inaction of Health Ministry management, which no longer seems capable of functioning in this renewed struggle against the coronavirus that could see us regress to where we were in the fight against the virus just a few months ago.
Bennett must also ignore the reckless voices in the coalition which sometimes sound as if they came from members of a COVID-denying cult. The dangerous claims these people make could lead us to disaster and a dangerous new outbreak of the pandemic.
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