Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said last week that 2021 had been Israel's best year in the 21^st century in terms of economics. While 2021 did see some records set for exports, credit expenditures, profits for retail chains, and banks, when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, things were much bleaker, a report from LAHAV, the Israel Chamber of Independent Organizations and Businesses for 2021 shows.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

According to initial assessments, 2021 saw 70,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Israel go under, while only 35,000 new ones opened.

The number of businesses that closed up shop in 2021 was much higher than the two previous years. In 2019 – before the COVID pandemic – 44,000 small and medium-sized businesses ceased operations, and in 2020, 38,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Israel closed. The relatively low number of closures in 2020 was due to government assistance that kept some of these businesses afloat through the onset of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns.

It should also be noted that a small percentage of businesses stopped trading but did not close their tax files so the owners could claim government assistance. When the money stopped, these owners closed up shop.

In addition, the high number of small businesses closing is deterring entrepreneurs from opening new businesses, which might explain why only 35,000 new businesses launched in 2021.

The research conducted by LAHAV economic consultant Dr. Roby Nathanson, also revealed that 86.4% of businesses survive their first year, about half make it to five years, and less than one-third are still in business 13 years after being opened.

Accountant Uri Beeri, chairman of the Elliot Group of Certified Public Accountants, said, "The figures that arise from the study should worry decision-makers. Small and medium-sized businesses are the motor that keeps the economy going, and as such they need special attention and major financial support to overcome the special difficulties of this time and allow their long-term survival, as well as the simultaneous growth of the economy.

"A glum figure this this about businesses closing shows that not enough has been done to help them. COVID is a very hard catalyst for closures, so we need to hurry up and look at tools we can use to help them when it comes to taxation, funding, human resources recruiting and costs, and municipal costs," Beeri said.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post 70,000 businesses in Israel failed to survive 2021, report shows appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Israel's coronavirus infection rate stands at 1.63%, according to Health Ministry data. Of the 46,714 people who tested for the virus Saturday, 734 were found to have COVID-19.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

For the first time in months, Israel has fewer than 20,000 active cases of the virus. There are currently 19,587 active cases. There are 388 Israelis in serious condition, 157 of whom are on ventilators. Among those in serious condition, 72%, 280 people, are unvaccinated.

Although 1,288,075 Israelis have recovered from the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, 7,983 have died.

On the inoculation front, 3,831,747 Israelis have received all three available doses of the coronavirus vaccine. Over 6 million Israelis – 6,201,766 – have received at least one dose of, while 65,698,137 have received two doses of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, officials in Melbourne, which has spent more time under COVID-19 lockdowns than any other city in the world, said Sunday the municipality was set to lift its stay-at-home orders this week.

By Friday, when some curbs will be lifted, the Australian city of 5 million people will have been under six lockdowns totaling 262 days, or nearly nine months, since March 2020.

Australian and other media say this is the longest in the world, exceeding a 234-day lockdown in Buenos Aires.

Australia, once a champion of a COVID-zero strategy of managing the pandemic, has been moving toward living with the virus through extensive vaccinations, as the Delta variant has proven too transmissible to suppress.

The new strategy makes lockdowns highly unlikely once 80% of the population is fully vaccinated. As of the weekend, around 68% of eligible Australians have been fully inoculated.

Australia's health officials said on Sunday that quarantine-free travel from New Zealand's South Island, where there is no outbreak, will resume on Wednesday.

New Zealand vaccinated at least 2.5% of its people on Saturday as the government tries to accelerate inoculations and live with COVID-19, preliminary health ministry data showed.

Through an array of strategies, gimmicks, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's encouragement throughout the day, 124,669 shots were administered by late in the day in a country of 4.9 million.

New Zealand had stayed largely virus-free for most of the pandemic until an outbreak of the Delta variant in mid-August. The government now aims to have the country live with COVID-19 through higher inoculations.

It has been in lockdown since mid-August to stamp out the Delta outbreak. Officials plan to end the strict restrictions when full vaccination rates reach 90%.

As of Friday, 62% of New Zealand's eligible population had been fully vaccinated and 83% had received one shot.

In the US, meanwhile, police departments requiring officers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are running up against pockets of resistance that some fear could leave law enforcement shorthanded and undermine public safety.

Police unions and officers are pushing back by filing lawsuits to block the mandates. In Chicago, the head of the police union called on members to defy the city's Friday deadline for reporting their COVID-19 vaccination status.

Seattle's police department sent detectives and non-patrol officers to emergency calls this week because of a shortage of patrol officers that union leaders fear will become worse because of vaccine mandates.

The standoffs are playing out at a time when many police departments already are dealing with surging homicide rates and staff shortages unrelated to the vaccine. Cities and police leaders are now weighing the risk of losing more officers to resignations, firings, or suspensions over their refusal to get vaccinated.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Active COVID cases drop below 20,000 for first time in months appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

In a special interview with Israel Hayom, Israel's first coronavirus chief insists we need to get used to living with the coronavirus and "stop publishing the number of new infections every day."

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Gamzu, who currently serves as director of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, spoke to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz a few weeks ago, when a fourth national lockdown was on the table.

"I told them lockdowns are a solution of weakness. It needs to be removed from our vocabulary. Look at what's happening in a lot of places around the world, including the US. They've learned to live alongside the pandemic. We don't need to push the numbers of new confirmed cases on the public every morning. The government needs to be responsible, to tell citizens: There are rules, this is the direction, but we want you to continue to live your lives, within the framework of the restrictions that have been determined."

He said: "The coronavirus will not disappear from our lives, so we're supposed to count confirmed cases every day? Every day, we'll publish the positive test rate? Do you know whether the positive infection rate includes antigens or not? What does a 4% infection rate mean to the public? Does this include serological tests at nursing homes or not?

"So the news says the positive test rate has increased from three to 4%. What does the [average] citizen understand from that? I want people to stop focusing on the number of new infections. I want people to feel comfortable about going to get tested, and not immediately say: 'In Holon, there are this many infections, in Modi'in there are that many.'"

Q: What do you think of the government's handling of the pandemic in recent months?

"The management is very complicated. The public diplomacy efforts too, both in finding places where people do not adhere to the guidelines and [there isn't enough] enforcement and fighting fake news and dealing with pandemic deniers. We need to work on specifics, learn about these places, initiate processes, get mayors to send out people to supervise, compensate mayors and communities so that they can increase their oversight force.

"The management [of the pandemic] on a macro level has not been particularly successful in Israel - both that of the current government as well as its predecessor, as well as the one before that and the one before that. I run Ichilov [TSMC] far better. I get into the details. The feedback I receive, my control system, is better than what is happening all over Israel."

Q: When you were coronavirus chief, did you feel like the government's handling of the pandemic was influenced by politics?

"This kind of an event brings together professionals and politicians. I can't tell politicians not to get involved. That's a lost cause, they will continue to intervene. But professionals need to stand up to them like a wall, to designate the red lines, to fight.

"Do you think the whole issue of banning travel to Uman was easy for me? That it was easy to shut down the education system in red cities? I had to fight the [government's so-called coronavirus] cabinet for that."

Q: Should the health minister be a professional in the field such as yourself?

"Yes, but in the end, politics penetrates everything. I don't know when there will be a professional in this role here. I would be very happy to do it. Tell me tomorrow, and I will leave Ichilov and go and do it. Obviously, it's one of my aspirations. Having a professional in this role would really help."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Former COVID chief: Lockdowns not the solution appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Less than a month into a COVID-19 vaccine booster drive, Israel is seeing signs of an impact on the country's high infection and severe illness rates fuelled by the fast-spreading Delta variant, officials and scientists say.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Delta hit Israel in June, just as the country began to reap the benefits of one of the world's fastest vaccine roll-outs.

With an open economy and most curbs scrapped, Israel went from single-digit daily infections and zero deaths to around 7,500 daily cases last week, 600 people hospitalized in serious condition and more than 150 people dying in that week alone.

On July 30, it began administering a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine to people over 60, the first country to do so. On Thursday it expanded eligibility to 30-year-olds and up whose second dose was given at least five months prior, saying the age may drop further.

In the past 10 days, the pandemic is abating among the first age group, more than a million of whom have received a third vaccine dose, according to Israeli Health Ministry data and scientists interviewed by Reuters.

The rate of disease spread among vaccinated people age 60 and over began falling steadily around Aug. 13 and has dipped below 1, indicating that each infected person is transmitting the virus to fewer than one other person. A reproduction rate of less than 1 means an outbreak is subsiding.

Scientists said booster shots are having an impact on infections, but other factors are likely contributing to the decline as well.

"The numbers are still very high but what has changed is that the very high increase in the rate of infections and severe cases has diminished, as has the pace at which the pandemic is spreading," said Eran Segal, a data scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and an adviser to the government.

"This is likely due to the third booster shots, an uptake in people taking the first dose and the high number of people infected per week, possibly up to 100,000, who now have natural immunity," Segal said.

Israel appears poised to break its previous record for confirmed daily cases, according to Health Ministry data released Tuesday. Of the 157,994 people who tested for the virus Monday, 9,831 were found to have the disease. Israel confirmed its highest number of new cases, 10,118, back in January 2021. Over one million people have been infected since the beginning of the pandemic.

The infection rate stands at 6.63%. The reproduction rate, which relates to the number of people each confirmed carrier infects, is 1.19.

The country has 72,572 active cases of the virus. There are 678 people in serious condition, 123 of whom are on ventilators.

Although 925,941 people have recovered from the virus, 6,864 have died.

Among those Israelis eligible for the coronavirus vaccine, fewer than 1 million – around 978,000 – have yet to get the jab.

Infections have spiked in the Haredi community since students in the community returned to schools on Aug. 9, according to ministry data. At around 4% at the start of the new school year, the community's infection rate was comparable to that of the general population at the time. In just two weeks, that rate has nearly tripled to 11.48%, while the infection rate in the general population now stands at around 5%. The rapid increase in infections comes despite community members having been found to possess higher antibody levels than the general population officials believed might make them less susceptible to infection.

In an interview with Army Radio Tuesday, coronavirus cabinet member and Housing and Construction Minister Ze'ev Elkin said: "The increase in seriously ill patients is much slower, but this is a kind of illusion. The experts said it is clear those who got the third vaccine dose are less at risk of becoming seriously ill, but if we don't succeed in stopping the new infections –– the number of patients in serious condition will continue to climb."

Former Health Ministry Director-General Hezi Levy called lockdown "a doomsday device" in an interview with Army Radio Tuesday.

"I don't think we need to get there. I doubt it will do what we need it to do. The people are tired, and we cannot be sure people will abide by the guidelines," he said.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz announced the government would now offer at-home vaccinations alongside the addition of hundreds of medical workers in an effort to rein in morbidity levels.

Meanwhile, the government updated its blacklist of countries Israelis are barred from visiting, Monday, so that it now includes Bulgaria, Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey. Georgia and Spain were removed from the list.

Also on Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, potentially boosting public confidence in the shots and instantly paving the way for more universities, companies, and local governments to make vaccinations mandatory.

Hundreds of millions of Pfizer doses have been administered worldwide since the FDA approved the vaccine for emergency use in December. In going a step further and granting full approval, the FDA cited months of real-world evidence that serious side effects are extremely rare.

US President Joe Biden said that for those who hesitated to get the vaccine until it received what he dubbed the "gold standard" of FDA approval, "the moment you've been waiting for is here."

Pfizer said the US is the first country to grant full approval of its vaccine, in a process that required a 360,000-page application and rigorous inspections. Never before has the FDA has so much evidence to judge a shot's safety.

The formula, jointly developed with Germany's BioNTech, will be marketed under the brand name Comirnaty.

Moderna, whose vaccines Israel also acquired, has also applied to the FDA for full approval of its vaccine.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Israel's COVID booster shot campaign could be beating back Delta variant appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett received a third shot of Pfizer/BioNtech's COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, after Israel extended its booster campaign for people over 40 to try to curb the Delta coronavirus variant.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

New cases in Israel have surged since Delta's emergence and Bennett, 49, has sought to avoid an economically painful national lockdown by ramping up third doses.

People over 60 began receiving third doses in July, before the minimum age of eligibility was dropped to 50. Health Ministry officials cited waning immunity and Delta's high infectiousness.

The Health Ministry said on Friday that boosters would now be administered to people over 40 whose second shot was at least five months ago. It recommended teachers, health workers, caregivers of the elderly, and pregnant women of all ages have the shot.

"If you go get vaccinated with a third shot, we will be able to avoid a fourth lockdown," Bennett said before he was shown live on social media receiving his shot. He said Israel would share its data.

"A few weeks ago, I told the public that if we get vaccinated in Elul [the last month of the Jewish year] we will be able to celebrate the holidays with our families in Tishrei [the first month of the Jewish year ]," Bennett said in a statement.

"I am telling you now: It's in arm's reach. It sounded unreal, because the Israeli public is used to spending holidays in lockdown."

"It's in arm's reach, but we're not there yet," he emphasized. "I'm telling you clearly: If you go get the third vaccine, we'll be able to avoid a fourth lockdown. We are at the peak of the battle at this very moment."

Over 1.2 million of Israel's 9.3 million people have received a third shot, which an Israeli healthcare provider said on Wednesday was 86% effective in preventing infection.

Israeli health officials have said they are seeing initial signs that the booster campaign may be slowing the rate at which cases are climbing.

About 1 million eligible Israelis have not taken any dose of the vaccine and severe cases have been climbing, though few fully vaccinated 40 to 50-year-olds have fallen seriously ill.

Studies have shown the vaccine is still highly effective in preventing serious illness but its effectiveness against new infections fell as the Delta variant spread.

There is no consensus among scientists and health agencies that a third dose is necessary.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry on Friday morning reported that the number of severe coronavirus cases had reached 594.

At the same time, the ministry reported that 7,692 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed on Thursday, representing 5.54% of the coronavirus test results received.

There are currently 62,922 active coronavirus cases, and the country has so far seen 6,759 coronavirus deaths, including 17 who died on Tuesday and four who died Wednesday.

Nearly one thousand (957) coronavirus patients are hospitalized, including the 594 who are in serious condition, of whom 149 are in critical condition, with 108 patients intubated.

Earlier this month, the Health Ministry said that if Israel reaches 600-700 severe coronavirus cases, the country will need to lock down in order to avoid overwhelming the hospitals.

The reason for this is that Israel's hospitals are able to properly care for just 1,200 coronavirus patients, and reaching the ministry benchmark would signal that hospitals would reach maximum capacity within the coming weeks.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said he was concerned about the discovery of 10 cases of the South American AY3 variant of the coronavirus in Israel.

"I hope it does not spread too much and that we manage to isolate the cases," Horowitz told Channel 12 News on Thursday.

"This virus is changing rapidly and adapting itself. We have come across some cases of this mutation in the country, thanks to the surveillance at Ben Gurion Airport, where every person is tested, and also because of the extensive array of tests we are conducting now. This allows us to identify variants quickly," he added.

The post PM receives third COVID-19 shot as Israel extends booster campaign appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

On Thursday, Israel Hayom reported that Bennett and his close associates pressured hospital directors not to give media interviews or sound the alarm if hospitals are unable to properly care for patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19.

In addition, a senior ministry official asserted the government had issued the unprecedented demand the Health Ministry "provide a lower standard of medical care to say that we can meet the demands of treating coronavirus patients and avoid entering a lockdown."

Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash even warned coronavirus patients "could die in the streets," the source said.

Likud party officials claimed, "The demand for an investigation follows the report of the deal Bennett offered in which he demanded hospital directors lie and mislead the public in regard to the extent of the coronavirus failure he is responsible for, this in return for a budget increase of billions of shekels."

The Prime Minister's Office responded to the uproar in a statement calling the Israel Hayom report on the "imaginary demand for silence from hospital directors – false and unfounded.

"No such demand was made of hospital directors, not officially or alluded to, not in writing or a verbal agreement. Any attempt to slander the professional integrity of the best of our doctors disparages those who are on the front lines of the coronavirus battle day and night. Everything else in the article quite simply never happened."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Likud: Investigate claims PM bribing hospitals to mislead public on COVID-19 appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Most of the public in Israel thinks that a fourth lockdown to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of COVID would be a failure on the part of the government, a new Israel Hayom poll shows.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The poll, conducted for Israel Hayom by the Maagar Mohot Institute, indicates that 58% of respondents feel that a lockdown represents a failure by the government, and 42% think that a lockdown is not a failure by the government to handle the COVID crisis.

The poll also indicates that if an election were held today, the Likud would win 32 seats and the right-wing bloc, including Yamina, would win 62 seats. Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party would not pass the minimum electoral threshold.

The poll was conducted among a representative sample of 504 adult Israelis and had a margin of error of 4.4%.

Unsurprisingly, the poll showed that the spike in COVID cases, due mostly to the highly contagious Delta variant, was a major concern for respondents, with 67% saying they were worried or very worried about the latest outbreak. Another 21% of respondents said they were somewhat worried, and 12% said they were not worried about it.

With only weeks to go before the High Holidays, 45% of respondents said that a holiday lockdown would be an appropriate course of action if the government and health authorities are unable to stop the COVID outbreak, whereas 36% said it would not be the right thing to do. The remaining 19% said they did not know if the holiday lockdown was the right course of action or not, if the current COVID outbreak is not halted.

This week, the Treasury announced that if the government declares another lockdown, the previous policy of paid furlough would not be on the table. A large majority of the public opposed that policy, with 76% of respondents saying that the paid furlough framework needed to be put back in place.

Talk of a fourth lockdown appears to be causing concern about the economic fallout of the latest outbreak: 41% of respondents said they were worried or very worried about a financial hit, and 31% said they were "sort of" worried about the financial ramifications to them of another lockdown. Meanwhile, 28% said they were not worried about the economic impact of the Delta outbreak.

As for how respondents would vote in an election today, Yamina dropped to eight seats, compared to the nine it was given in a poll conducted at the end of July. In the last election, the party won seven seats.

On the center-left, Labor would win six seats if an election were held today; Blue and White would win 10; and Yesh Atid would win 18, the poll showed.

United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Beytenu, and the Religious Zionist Party were each projected to win seven seats if an election were held today, with eight seats projected for Shas ad six seats each for Meretz, and the Joint Arab List. Ra'am was expected to gain one seat, moving up to five.

When asked whom they saw as the most fitting person to serve as prime minister, 51% named Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Another 23% named Yesh Atid leader and Prime Minister-designate Yair Lapid as the best person for the job, compared to only 12% who said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was the best person to serve as prime minister.

That trend held true among voters for Bennett's Yamina party, with 44% picking Netanyahu as best qualified to serve as prime minister, compared to 34% who said Bennett was their pick for the job.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Poll: Most Israelis see lockdown as 'failure by government' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The highly contagious delta variant continues to wreak havoc across Israel and the government is looking for new ways to increase the vaccination rate.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The Health Ministry reported Sunday that of the 76,203 Israelis it screened for the coronavirus on Saturday, 2,886 (3.83%) tested positive.

There are now 32,300 active cases in the country. As of Sunday morning, 602 Israelis were hospitalized, of whom 348 were in serious condition – the highest number reported since April 1.

The number of COVID deaths rose to 6,535 on Saturday after two Israelis succumbed to the virus. Israel has reported 859,598 confirmed coronavirus cases since the outbreak of the pandemic last year.

According to ministry data, most of the newly infected are Israelis under the age of 60, and 51% are Israelis in their 20s. The worrying data has prompted the Health Ministry to consider expanding its third dose vaccination campaign, currently for Israelis over the age of 60, to include all Israelis older than 16. So far, 422,326 senior citizens have received a third jab.

The government is also mulling imposing a national lockdown during the upcoming High Holidays in September, however, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Sunday that a lockdown would be "the last resort."

Instead, he called on Israelis to wear protective masks, follow safety guidelines, and most importantly, get vaccinated.

He also launched Israel's rapid COVID test campaign by becoming the first Israeli to receive such a test. In a televised broadcast, he explained that starting Sunday, Israelis across the entire country will be able to take a rapid test and receive their results in a whopping 15 minutes.

"We must all understand that the coronavirus is not going to disappear any time soon. The rapid testing system is an infrastructure that will allow us to lead normal lives alongside the virus," Horowitz said.

Horowitz told reporters that the government was "working together with local authorities and educational institutions across all of Israel to encourage vaccinations [among Israeli youth], starting with the ultra-Orthodox sector.

He explained that the program would "cost money, but it is nothing compared to what a lockdown would cost the economy."

The government initially wanted to work with the schools directly, but Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Bitton said last week that she opposed the move.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked decided to bypass the education minister's opposition and work with the local authorities instead.

They also decided to financially reward schools that have a high percentage of vaccinated children and set up mobile vaccination sites outside schools that report low inoculation rates.

In any case, Horowitz said, if the morbidity rate continued to rise, the government would have no choice but implement a lockdown.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Health Minister: We will incentivize schools to encourage vaccinations appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Israel's coronavirus infection rate stands at 3.79%, according to Health Ministry data released Friday. Of the 116,040 people tested for the virus Thursday, 3,843 were found to have the disease.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The reproduction rate is 1.35, meaning that each confirmed carrier infects 1.35 other people.

As of Friday morning, there were 27,525 active cases of the virus in Israel, with 253 patients listed in serious condition, 52 of whom were on ventilators.

While 857,657 Israelis have recovered from the virus, 6,509 have died, 32 succumbing to the virus this week alone. 

Over 5.8 million Israelis have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while over 5.39 million have received both doses.

Since Israel approved a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine for Israelis aged 60 and over, over 349,700 Israelis have received an additional booster shot.

Noting high demand for vaccination, healthcare providers allayed concerns Israel's vaccine supply was running low.

In a statement, Clalit Healthcare Services, Israel's largest healthcare provider noted "there may be discrepancies of an hour to two hours in inventory replenishment."

"Not only do we not have a lack of vaccines, but in fact we are increasing the vaccinate rate and increasing the number of sites where people can get vaccinated every day," the Meuhedet healthcare provider said. It said 61% of clients had either already been vaccinated or made an appointment to get vaccinated soon.

In addition, Meuhedet noted it was "working around the clock to meet the goal set out for us by the prime minister to vaccinate everyone aged 60 and over with a third dose."

Beginning Sunday, the Magen David Adom emergency services will operate 120 rapid coronavirus testing stations across the country for the use of unvaccinated Israelis and those who have recovered from the virus. Anyone interested in a rapid test will need to schedule an appointment in advance. The rapid testing stations are designed to provide results within 15 minutes. The test results will then appear on the individual's Green Pass phone application to allow entry into hotels, restaurants, and event venues, as well as send the information to healthcare providers and the Health Ministry. Should an individual test positive, they will need to take a standard PCR coronavirus test and enter quarantine.

In a statement, Dr. Rafael Strugo, Magen David Adom's medical director, emphasized the rapid testing stations were not aimed at diagnosing those experiencing coronavirus symptoms but rather at allowing unvaccinated Israelis to attend public events in accordance with the Green Pass.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories! 

The post Nearly 350,000 Israelis receive COVID booster as deaths top 6,500 appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized Prime Minister Naftali Bennett Thursday for what he called Bennett's mishandling the coronavirus pandemic, which Netanyahu said had resulted in an infection outbreak "that could have been avoided."

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

His remarks came as daily coronavirus cases in Israel reached over 3,000 and the government tightened restrictions and mulled instating a national lockdown in September.

"Unfortunately, Bennett is leading us to a lockdown because he wastes precious time waiting for the third vaccine doses to arrive," Netanyahu said, referring to the third vaccine campaign the government launched last week to vaccinate Israelis over the age of 60.

"Bennett failed to bring the millions of vaccine doses the government I headed had already ordered and paid for months ago. We knew already back then that the effectiveness of the second vaccine would decrease over time, and that is why we ordered more doses for the third jab," Netanyahu said.

The former prime minister did not spare Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, either.

"The most absurd thing is that the current government is blaming us, the public, while Lapid and Lieberman didn't even bother showing up at the Coronavirus Cabinet meetings. They are running away from responsibility," Netanyahu said.

Many have criticized the foreign and finance ministers for not attending any of the ministerial committee's meetings on Israel's coronavirus response since the new government was formed in June.

Lapid claimed his position as foreign minister, as well as prime minister-designate, was not directly linked to coronavirus policy, and Lieberman said he needed to focus on passing a state budget and sent another minister in his place.

"In our government," Netanyahu said, "Finance Minister [Israel] Katz, Foreign Minister [Gabi] Ashkenazi, and I attended every coronavirus meeting, around the clock, into the night.

"We handed Bennett a country in the best condition in the world, in terms of the coronavirus, with almost zero new cases a day. Now, there are 3,000 new cases daily. Instead of arguing over government positions and raising unnecessary taxes on the public, maybe you should start fighting the coronavirus?" he concluded.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post 'Were it not for Bennett's failure, lockdown could have been avoided' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.