JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In the wake of a significant spike in coronavirus cases in Israel including a rise in mortality and serious cases, the Health and Social Affairs committee has authorized a Health Ministry requirement to add 18 more countries including Greece and the US to the list of countries requiring isolation for travellers returning from them. The new regulations require a week’s isolation for everyone including recoverees and vaccinated persons as well as 2 negative tests.
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Other countries requiring isolation include the Ukraine, Italy, Iceland, France, Germany and Holland.
This means that people in the US planning to get married in Israel in the next few weeks must fly in to Israel by Friday. Moreover yeshiva students will also require isolation if they return after that date.
The head of the committee, MK Efrat Reiten, said that “I hope that this is the last time we will meet on this topic. Seven days of isolation is a tough decree and my heart is with the tourism industry whose livelihood is being cut every time we make new regulations like this.”
Tourism industry officials describe this as a “death blow” which will lead to hundreds of jobs being lost.
Ilana Gantz, director of the Health Ministry’s public health section said that “the present wave of infection is similar to that we are seeing around the world with most of the world seeing a spike due to the Delta strain.”