Coronavirus: Netanyahu’s plan to reopen cannot be guaranteed – official

“I cannot commit that we will fully reopen in another month,” Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the ministry’s head of Public Health Services, told the army radio, adding that it depends on factors such as the morbidity rate.

According to Netanyahu’s plan, during the second week of March there will be further openings in the education system and in the commercial sector, by the end of the month all eligible Israelis will be vaccinated and in April the country will return to normal life.

Asked about reopening Ben-Gurion Airport, Alroy-Preis said that as soon as a system to enforce the mandatory quarantine for those who come back from abroad is implemented, more people will be allowed to fly in.

On Wednesday, the Health Ministry and the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee signed off a pilot project to offer returnees to isolate at home wearing an electronic bracelet.

A total of 4,298 Israelis tested positive for the coronavirus in the previous day, the Health Ministry reported on Thursday. While the number of cases remained high, the positivity rate marked the lowest in over a month, with 5.9% of the 75,836 tests administered returning a positive result.

Of those sick, 770 were in serious condition, with 303 critically ill and 249 intubated.

The death toll stood at 5,673.

A 26-year-old who collapsed in his house and was pronounced death at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem was found positive to the virus after the doctors learned that he and his entire family were in isolation, Israeli media reported. According to a relative of the man, he did not suffer from any pre-existing condition.

On the vaccination front, some 4.6 Israelis have received the first shot of the coronavirus vaccine and 3.2 million had also the second.