Bnei Brak overtakes Jerusalem as covid hotbed

The mostly ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak recorded 787 new coronavirus cases on Monday, compared with the high 764 in Jerusalem. All in all, 5,647 new cases were tallied nationwide, a quarter of them in those two cities. At the same time, seriously ill cases across the country dropped by 8 to 875, although the death toll climbed by 14 new fatalities to a total of 1,757.

Yitzhak Halevi, mayor of Eilat, at the southernmost tip of Israel, complained that the small town was being treated unfairly. With the lowest rate of coronavirus infection in the country, Eilat is not only forced into lockdown, but the absence of tourists, the city’s lifeblood, has ramped up unemployment to 76 percent.