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Health Ministry Deputy Director General Professor Itamar Grotto on Monday morning responded to the relaxed lockdown restrictions, as well as to the attitude accompanying some of them.

In an interview with Reshet Bet, Grotto said: "The most important thing is to prevent gatherings - those are the dangerous places and we need to prevent them. Even if people go out for exercise, and there are a hundred people running together, there will be a problem with that. We need to prevent ourselves from reaching such a situation."

Regarding the reasons for relaxing the restrictions so slowly, Professor Grotto said: "We see that the situation is sensitive - in places where they relaxed things too quickly, the virus returned at a very quick pace, so we're doing it slowly and carefully, and as long as we see that the steps we're taking aren't causing damage, we can move forward."

He also refused to state when he expects malls, barbershops, and cosmeticians to be able to reopen. "We don't know enough to make predictions. This virus is acting in a very strange fashion, we don't know what the weather will do. There was one peak, and we want to prevent another peak from occurring."

Regarding the decision to lift the tight lockdowns on Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, he said: "There is an improvement in the number of cases and in the morbidity, and that's why the restrictions on those cities are being lifted somewhat. The moment we see a drop we can release it a bit. We can also increase enforcement of the rules, instead of using an extreme lockdown."

When asked about when schools will reopen, Grotto said: "There are two issues here: The issue of morbidity, and the issue of agreements between the Finance Ministry and the teachers."