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Israel hits brakes on economy reopening

An emergency meeting of the so-called corona-cabinet concluded, after which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a decision has been made to hold-off further easing of restrictions over a troubling upward trend in newly confirm coronavirus cases.

“We just concluded a meeting of the corona-cabinet,” said the Israeli leader, explaining that “It opened with a briefing by the experts who showed us that there has been a very steep increase in morbidity. It could be that we are already seeing the doubling of the rate of infection within ten days. I hope not. What we decided to do, first of all, is to hit the emergency brake. We stopped all of the measures to ease restrictions that we were going to apply in the coming days. We will check this again next week. One exception is event halls, we will allow them to operate according to the directives of the Health Ministry and we will report to you later on.”

Evidently frustrated over the Israeli public’s complacency, Premier Netanyahu reiterated his call to comply to the three-basic government-instructed rules that – regrettably – are not being upheld. “The main point that all experts and all the ones who know emphasized is that it is imperative to adhere to the three rules: including wearing masks, maintaining social distancing of two meters and hygiene, i.e. washing hands,” he said.

Netanyahu underscoered, “I urge you, for the sake of our economy, for the sake of our health, for the sake of all our lives, please adhere to the rules.”

According to the Israeli Health Ministry’s latest accumulated data, since the first outbreak of the coronavirus, 18,032 Israelis were confirmed as carriers of the disease, 15,024 have completely healed and 299 individuals succumbed to the contagion.

And while the first perceived wave indicated outbreaks in limited areas and communities, the new reported rise of confirmed coronavirus cases is seemingly spread out throughout the entire country, including an unparalleled spike in Israel’s economic center, Tel Aviv.