Two local lockdowns as 175 new coronavirus cases confirmed

A task force summoned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to discuss the rising level of covid-19 infections – 170 in the last 24 hours – decided on spot lockdowns in two places: the foreign workers’ community in South Tel Aviv and certain Bedouin districts in the Negev, from which 300 individuals who had contracted the virus were evacuated to cut down on exposure.

The government does not intend to backpedal on the broad reopening of the economy from three months of lockdown – for the time being. Schools will continue to operate on the post-coronavirus format. i.e. when a pupil or teacher is tested positive, the schools goes into 7 days’ quarantine. The situation there is deemed under control,

For now, infection figures double roughly every eight days, which is acceptable. However, as a precaution, gatherings will be limited to 50 people and police enforcement of the rules, including face masks, is to be intensified. And two sectors are still shuttered and causing loud and desperate popular protest – entertainment and the railway. Theater, cinema and events staffs have drawn no wages for four months, and many thousands of carless commuters are tied down from going to work so long as the trains are not running.
Most health experts maintain that, even though infection figures are going up exponentially, there is no real cause to lock down the economy. again. Expanded coronavirus testing accounts for some of the spike in infection to 18,461 on Thursday, but the threat posed by the new cases is no higher than before, since the bulk of active cases is still just 2,947 and the scale of hospitalization of severe cases is slowly edging down to 29 patients with 24 on respirators on Thursday.