The Coronavirus Cabinet ruled on Wednesday that all arrivals from abroad will have to get tested for the pathogen upon landing in Israel and self-isolate until receiving a negative answer.
The ruling is part of several measures suggested by the Health Ministry and approved by the ministerial panel to curb the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant which also include quick virus testing at the entrance to geriatric institutions and summer camps hosting over 100 children.
Coronavirus testing at geriatric institutions and summer camps will be subsidized by the state while arrivals from abroad will have to pay for tests out of pocket.
At the end of a three-hour meeting at Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's office, the virus Cabinet was adjourned without imposing any new restrictions on Israeli society as panel members deemed them "unnecessary at this stage."
The Prime Minister's Office said in a statement that virus Cabinet members decided to press on with their current "soft holding action" strategy that aims to rein in the virus while causing minimal disruptions to daily life in Israel and the economy.
Ministers also decided to augment efforts to vaccinate larger swathes of the Israeli population against coronavirus, mainly focusing on adolescents — efforts which are already bearing fruit as over 150,000 youths aged 12–15 have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine in recent days, according to Prime Minister Bennett.
Bennett also urged Israelis to continue wearing masks indoors, calling face covers "the strongest tool to handling coronavirus without paying a tool."
Meanwhile, Israel on Wednesday reported over 500 new daily coronavirus cases, diagnosed a day earlier, for the second day in a row.
The Health Ministry said 521 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday. After more than 85,429 tests had been conducted, the national contagion rate now stands at 0.7%.
On Monday, 501 Israelis tested positive for COVID-19, the highest daily tally since March of this year.
The tally of serious cases has also gone up and now stands at 40, compared to 33 a day earlier. At least 16 patients are connected to ventilators.
Weizmann Institute of Science's Prof. Eli Waxman told Ynet on Wednesday he feared daily coronavirus diagnoses could soon shoot up to 3,000 and implored the political echelon to quickly reimpose some measures to curb the latest outbreak.