Israel resumes wearing masks indoors as COVID cases rise

Israel on Friday reinstated the mandatory use of facemasks indoors, which it withdrew ten days ago, in the face of a rising number of cases of COVID-19 delta variant, the Health Ministry said.

National pandemic coordinator Nachman Ash said he did not believe the country was in a fourth wave of infection but supported the move because of the rising positivity rate and the number of cases, which today surpassed 200, the highest since April.

Health recorded a total of 227 new infections in 24 hours, after a week marked by a significant increase of over a hundred which has raised the positivity ratio from 0.1% to 0.6%.

Facemasks in " non-open spaces " will again be mandatory, with exemptions for children under 7 years of age, disabled people, those alone indoors, employees working in the same room and people engaged in sporting activity.

With the fastest vaccination campaign in the world, with more than 5.1 million vaccinated with the two doses -out of more than nine million residents- and a majority of the population immunised by the sum of the recovered COVIDs, the country had returned to a state of virtual normality.

It was the first country to withdraw the mandatory use of masks outdoors in mid-April, and since 15 June it was no longer required indoors either, with a few exceptions such as in nursing homes and aeroplanes.

However, the entry of the delta variant, now predominant in the country, which manifested itself in outbreaks in schools in two Israeli cities, has spread and, in a high percentage, among the vaccinated.

Israel's new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, this week postponed until 1 August the entry of tourists into the country, which was scheduled for 1 July, and announced the possibility of re-imposing restrictions to contain the spread of the disease.

In addition, the health ministry is trying to speed up the vaccination of children between the ages of 12 and 15.

Even with a low number, the rising morbidity rate worries the Israeli authorities, who have stepped up quarantine surveillance of those returning from abroad without vaccination, as well as fines for those who fail to comply.
The country has kept its external borders closed to tourists since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, which began to ease at the end of May for groups of vaccinated people with prior authorisation, in order to avoid the mutations that have broken out in the country's epidemiological situation, which was under control until a couple of weeks ago.