Health Ministry Director General Prof. Nachman Ash said Wednesday he backs the reinstatement of the Green Pass guidelines in tandem with restrictions on crowd sizes in order to battle the surge of COVID in the country.
Israel on Wednesday recorded over 700 new daily coronavirus cases for the second day in a row as the country battles the spread of the Delta variant.
Prof. Ash told Ynet if the surge of new virus cases continues in its current trajectory, the government will have to take much more drastic steps.
"If we will see a [further] rise in infection, we may reach hundreds of severly ill patients. We have warned of such a scenario."
The coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday evening voted to cut the isolation period for travelers returning from abroad or those exposed to confirmed coronavirus carriers from 14 to seven days.
The director general said during the next meeting of the cabinet, Health Ministry officials will again recommend more stringent measures, as they did during the meeting on Tuesday.
"The direction for us will be the same during the next cabinet meeting - a combination of the Green Pass and restrictions on gatherings," he said. "The main issue with infection spread is confined spaces. It is possible to offer a return to restrictions on crowds in confined spaces. We'll have to think about it."
Prof. Ash said he backs setting up pop up rapid testing centers at entrances to events attended by more than 100 guests. "In fact, the decision now is to prepare infrastructure and deploy the rapid testing stations. I hope we can do that."
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A teenager receives a dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease at Clalit HMO in Tel Aviv
(Photo: Reuters)
The Health Ministry earlier said 754 people tested positive for COVID on Tuesday after more than 52,781 tests had been conducted, putting the contagion rate at 1.45%.
At least 53 people are now in serious condition, an increase of seven from a day earlier, of whom 15 are ventilated. So far, 6,440 people passed away from the disease in Israel.