Coronavirus: Cabinet considers lifting some Green Pass restrictions

If the morbidity in Israel continues to slow down, the Green Pass requirement might be abolished for several outdoor activities and venues, according to a recommendation by the Health Ministry presented during the cabinet meeting on Sunday.

The cabinet convened for the first time in over a month.

“The good news is that we are starting to block the Delta variant, but right now it’s dangerous to relax,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said while opening the meeting. “When the virus begins to recede – we must not allow it to resurge.”

Bennett said that the Israeli public was beginning to understand the government’s strategy and its goal to keep the country as open as possible but at the same time to pursue measures such as vaccination, masks and mass testing.

During the meeting, the government officials discussed the current situation, including a report by Hebrew University experts attesting a decline in cases in all sectors.

Earlier in the day, the Health Ministry extended the old Green Pass’s validity until Thursday as the ‘traffic light’ website and app where Israelis can download their document both crashed due to an overload of traffic.

On Sunday, the new Green Pass system came into effect.

According to the new rules, only people who were inoculated with a booster, received their second dose or recovered within the previous six months, or got a shot after recovering from the disease can obtain the Green Pass.

As a result over 1.5 million Israelis lost their eligibility – also considering that the document is only available a full week after the booster.

The Green Pass grants access to several venues and activities, as well as to some workplaces. A temporary one can be obtained by undergoing a test.

All individuals who are eligible are required to download the new document. According to the ministry, by 5 p.m. around 1.03 million green passes had already been obtained.

In light of the problems in the system however, the ministry said that, the old one will still be accepted until Thursday.

Also on Sunday, the number of serious patients remained stable at just below 590 for the second day in a row, confirming the trend downward.

Some 1,709 new cases were registered on Saturday, the lowest figure in over a month, with about 113,000 people screened.

Overall, the country has about 43,000 active cases, almost half of those at the peak of the fourth wave in August.

Around 22,000 of the active cases were registered among school children after school fully reopened on Thursday after the Jewish holidays.

Another 70,000 students were in isolation after been exposed to a verified patient.

In the next two weeks, the Health and Education ministries are set to finish testing the Green Class program to drastically change the quarantine requirements in schools: if the new outline is approved, only children who are infected will need to remain at home, while those who come in contact with a case will undergo a PCR test, a rapid test every day for a week and then another PCR test but will be able to continue to attend school in person unless they come out positive.

“Our next and most urgent task in my eyes is to put an end to the mass isolations in schools as soon as possible,” Bennett said. “We are currently preparing an infrastructure of millions of antigen tests that will enable us to do it. We will follow the pilot and other pilots that have started in recent days, and we will make a decision soon.”

The cabinet was also set to discuss how to improve the vaccination rate in the Arab sector.