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Ministry of Health Recommends Stricter Border Control to the Government

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Ministry of Health Recommends Stricter Border Control to the Government

In order to keep morbidity low and allow for continued economic relief as early as next week, the Ministry of Health seeks to bring for the Government's approval today a strategy for strict international travel, and a relaxation of restrictions domestically.

In order to keep morbidity low and allow for continued economic relief as early as next week, the Ministry of Health seeks to bring for the Government's approval today a strategy for strict international travel, and a relaxation of restrictions domestically. In other words, maintaining the level of morbidity as low as possible within Israel, while preventing the entry of disease variants from outside.

Following Health Minister MK Yuli Edelstein's approval of the plan brought forth by Ministry of Health professionals, the following are recommendations that will be presented to the Government:

Dividing countries into two groups

  • Level 1 group - will include most of the countries of the world - for which the existing policy will continue.
  • Level 2 group - high-risk countries - where existing policies will be tightened as follows:
    • Travel of Israelis to Level 2 countries will be completely banned (except for special exceptions).
    • Israelis returning from Level 2 countries will be required to isolate, even if they are vaccinated or recovered
    • Foreigners who are exceptionally approved from level 2 countries will enter mandatory isolation in hotels.

Criteria for level 2 countries
The criteria will be based on the work of the Information and Knowledge Center which has been tasked with issuing travel warnings, including regarding the presence of suspected dangerous variants in a country and the rate and the number of patients returning from these countries to Israel.

Currently the criteria include 7 countries (the countries to which the travel warnings would apply).

The countries will be updated once every two weeks by a committee in a format similar to the committee for Green and Red Countries. If there is a country where there is an significant increase in the criteria - it will be possible to declare that country a Level 2 country without waiting for the next evaluation period.

The strict conditions will apply to anyone who has stayed in one of the Level 2 countries during the 14 days prior to their arrival in the country.

The Ministry of Health will publish in advance countries that are being considered for inclusion in the Level 2 country list, in order to allow travellers to organize in advance.

Inbound tourism policy
In light of the prevalent morbidity situation in the world and the discovery of new variants - the Ministry of Health recommends postponing the inbound tourism pilot by one month (until the end of June).

As mentioned, it is of great importance that the Government approve the plan so that the relaxation of economic and social restrictions can continue without endangering lives.

This press release was sourced from Israel Ministry of Health on 27-Apr-2021.