After the emergence of a new subspecies of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus in Israel, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (49) held an emergency meeting with health politicians.
Israel will take steps to preserve the positive results of the fight against the virus, said Bennett’s office in a statement released on Wednesday. Changes to entry regulations would be considered, among other things.
Bennett called for the epidemiological investigation of the new variant subspecies AY 4.2 to be stepped up. The head of government also called for cooperation with other countries in which AY 4.2 has also occurred.
Restrictions in tourism must be relaxed
The Israeli Ministry of Health reported evidence of infection with AY 4.2 on Tuesday evening. “The variant AY 4.2, which was discovered in a number of countries in Europe, was identified in Israel,” said a statement from the ministry.
The infected person was therefore an eleven-year-old boy who had come from Europe. According to the information, the infection was already detected when the boy arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The boy has been quarantined and the subspecies AY 4.2 has already been detected several times in Great Britain.
Israel is currently considering easing its corona restrictions in tourism due to the falling number of infections. The government had dropped previous plans because of the increasing number of cases due to the delta variant. At the end of August and the beginning of September, more than 11,000 corona infections were detected in Israel every day.
However, in the course of a campaign for a third corona vaccination, the number of cases fell again. On Wednesday, the Israeli authorities reported 1,487 new infections within 24 hours. (SDA / AFP)