Covid-19: Israelis to face nationwide lockdown

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced a fresh countrywide lockdown for the end of Passover and Mimouna Festival.

While making the announcement on Monday April 13, 2020, the prime minister announced that Isrealis would be restricted from leaving their hometowns or their neighborhoods from 5p.m on Tuesday until 5a.m on Thursday.

Warning the Isrealis, Natanyahu said that until a vaccine for Covid-19 is developed, people will continue to be placed under restrictions.

Israel was already in a partial lockdown that required citizens to remain within 100 meters of their homes, but are allowed to engage in essential jobs and industrial acvities.

As of Monday evening, Ministry of health confirmed that Israel had had 11, 586 infected cases with 183 in serious conditions, 132 patients on ventilators, and 162 in moderate conditions.

With 1,855 people that had so far recovered from the virus, over 7,000 patients are being treated in their homes.

The new lockdown was announced following consultations Netanyahu held with his ministers early on Monday 13.

The Ministry of health particularly expressed a great concern that the Passover holiday and Mimouna festival could cause the social distancing which has been the country’s effective strategy in curbing the Covid-19 to relax.

The new lockdown measure was approved by the cabinet late on Monday. It was stated that to avoid crowding, bakeries would not open immediately after the passover but until Thursday Morning.

As a part of the restrictions, just as what happened on the first night of last week holiday, Netanyahu ordered that people should celebrate the last night of Passover and Mimouna with the people they live with.

He also disclosed government’s plan to gradually lift the restrictions on education and economic activities, although he said it would be “slow and responsible”.

While disclosing this, he said, “I say to you from here. We’ll go out to a different reality from the one we knew before the global crisis.”

He further gave warnings to the Israelis that there is every possibility that the virus could be contained, but preventing it from recurring might seem unrealistic at the moment until a vaccine is developed.

“Only when a coronavirus vaccine is found will we be able to move on to the world of tomorrow, which will be like the world of yesterday,” Netanyahu stated.

“But this is not the situation at the moment; therefore, everything will continue to be managed responsibly in order to protect the most precious thing we have – life itself,” he added.

While rounding off his remarks on a pessimistic note encouraging people to stay strong because together they would fight and defeat the virus, Netanyahu said,
“Even if it’s hard like the parting of the Red Sea, together we’ll get over the coronavirus and together we’ll defeat it.”