JERUSALEM — Israel will require all people arriving from the United States and 17 other countries to quarantine starting next week as the country grapples with a coronavirus surge.
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The Health Ministry issued a travel warning on Tuesday, saying all individuals — vaccinated and unvaccinated — arriving from 18 countries must fully quarantine for 14 days effective Aug. 11. If a person tests negative for coronavirus after seven days, they can be released from quarantine.
The countries are the United States, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Iceland, Greece, Ukraine, Eswatini, Botswana, Bulgaria, Tanzania, Malawi, Egypt, Czech Republic, Cuba, Rwanda and Tunisia.
They join a list of 24 other countries with various existing travel restrictions due to the pandemic, including the U.K., Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey.
The Israeli Health Ministry recorded 3,834 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the highest daily count topping a monthlong acceleration in new infections. Serious cases of COVID-19 have grown from 19 in mid-June to at least 221 despite the country’s rapid vaccination campaign.
More than 57% of the country’s 9.3 million citizens have received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Israel had secured a large supply of the Pfizer vaccines in exchange for trading medical data.
Was there really somebody in the Israeli health ministry shouting “Eswatini! Eswatini! Don’t forget to put Eswatini on the list!” ?
Oh well, there goes my plan on getting Eswatini citizenship.
All the countries on the list… have high vaccination rates.