COVID: Israel, UAE agree on green corridor to ensure freedom of movement

Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement for mutual recognition of their coronavirus vaccination certificates and green passes, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz announced on Sunday.

“This morning, with my colleague the UA health minister, I was happy to sign an agreement for a green corridor between the two countries,” Horowitz wrote on Twitter. “The agreement allows free movement between Israel and the Emirates and mutual recognition of vaccine certificates and green passes, without isolation and bureaucracy.”

On Thursday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced a plan to reopen Israel’s borders to vaccinated and recovered tourists after over a year and a half of closure. 

In order to be eligible to enter, visitors will need to present proof of meeting the criteria to be considered protected from the virus set for Israelis: recovered or inoculated with two doses in the previous six months, recovered with an additional shot or vaccinated also with a booster. The recognition of health documents will be therefore important to facilitate the process.

On Saturday, Israel registered the lowest number of new cases in over three months, with 324 new virus carriers identified. While on Saturdays the number of tests processed is significantly lower than on weekdays – this week around 35,000 compared to 90,000-100,000 – the number confirms all the downward trends that for the past few weeks have shown how the country is leaving the fourth wave behind.

As of Sunday, the positivity rate – which measures the percentage of people testing positive out of those who take the test – stood just under one at 0.98%, and there were around 13,000 active cases. At the peak of the wave in September, they were over 80,000.

In addition, the number of serious patients dropped to 307; four weeks earlier there were 689.

“After a record of almost 10,000 cases per day, we are moving to an average of about 1,000,” Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of Public Health Service at the Health Ministry, told the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee.

But she warned against complacency, especially regarding the issue of traveling.

“Dozens of infected people return from abroad every day, most of them unvaccinated, some of them with a vaccine older than six months, some recently vaccinated with a booster or two vaccines received within the previous six months,” she said. “In many countries, there is a new increase in morbidity both from a lack of vaccines, because the vaccines lose efficacy or because of the risk that a variant will emerge against which the vaccine is not effective anymore.

“In spite of a high rate of vaccine coverage, in Europe morbidity is on a significant rise,” she said.