Jerusalem: Israel has accomplished a feat! Israelis don’t need to wear face masks now, even outdoors. Thanks to the country’s mass vaccination programme against COVID-19, people have been moving around the city without any face masks on. The government has taken back its order to wear masks outdoors.
JUST IN: Israel, which has fully vaccinated 53% of its population, reports no new coronavirus deaths for the second day straight.
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) April 23, 2021
With about 81% of citizens or residents over 16 – the age group eligible for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Israel – having received both doses, contagions and hospitalisations are down sharply, ‘mint’ reported.
But entry by foreigners is still limited and non-immune Israelis who return from abroad must self-isolate, due to concern virus variants could challenge the vaccine. The Health Ministry said it had detected seven cases of a new Indian variant in Israel, whose potency was being assessed, the report added.
“We are leading the world right now when it comes to emerging from the coronavirus,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters. “(But) we have still not finished with the coronavirus. It can return.”
The police-enforced wearing of protective masks outdoors, ordered a year ago for non-exercise activities, was scrapped. But the Health Ministry said the requirement still applied for indoor public spaces and urged citizens to keep masks to hand.
“Breathing Freely,” read the cover headline of the mass-circulation daily Israel Hayom.
