Israel said on Saturday it would ban the entry of all foreigners into the country, making it the first country to completely close its borders in response to a new and potentially more infectious one. coronavirus version, and said it would use counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology to stop the spread of the Omicron variant.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement that the ban, pending government approval, would last 14 days. Officials hope that within that period there will be more information about how effective the COVID-19 vaccines are against Omicron, which was first detected in South Africa and dubbed “a form of concern” by the World Health Organization had gone.
“Our working hypothesis is that the variant is already there in almost every country,” Interior Minister Aylette Schek told N12’s “Meet the Press,” “and that the vaccine is effective, although we do not yet know to what extent.” “
Bennett said Israelis entering the country, including those who were vaccinated, would need to be quarantined. The ban will be effective from midnight on Sunday and Monday. Travel restrictions were imposed on Friday on foreigners arriving from most African states.
Bennett said the Shin Bet counter-terrorism agency’s phone-tracking technology would be used to trace the carriers of the new version to prevent its transmission to others.
On and off since March 2020, surveillance technology matched virus carriers’ locations to other nearby mobile phones to determine who they had come in contact with. Israel’s Supreme Court this year limited the scope of its use after civil rights groups faced challenges over privacy concerns.
The variant, which has also been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany and the UK, has sparked global concern and a wave of travel restrictions, although epidemiologists say it is not possible to prevent Omicron from being transmitted globally. It may be too late for such restrictions.
Israel has so far confirmed one case from Omicron, with seven suspected cases. The health ministry did not say whether the confirmed case was vaccinated. Of the seven suspected cases, three were fully vaccinated, the ministry said on Saturday, and three had not recently returned from foreign travel.
According to the Ministry of Health, about 57% of Israel’s 9.4 million population has been fully vaccinated, meaning they have either received their third shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or have received their second dose of five so far. It hasn’t been months. Israel has recorded 1.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 8,000 fatalities since the pandemic began.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.
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