Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that Israel is entering a third wave of the coronavirus, suggesting he may impose new restrictions on public activity to curb the infection rate.
“The vaccines are on their way,” Netanyahu said, “I’m working on it around the clock.”
“But until they get here, and even after they get here, we must lower the infection rate, which is entering a third wave.”
“We can lower it, we’ve proven that. We lower the infection rate and the fatality rate almost to the lowest point of any country in Europe. We did that because we didn’t hesitate to make the right decisions in time.”
“Now, too, I won’t hesitate to return some of the restrictions, and as we improve I’ll remove them. The period of the limits will be shorter.”
“There is a light at the end of the pandemic, we need to work together both to bring the vaccines and also to impose restrictions in order to lower the infection rate. We’ll get out of this.”
Earlier on Sunday, Israel’s coronavirus czar warned the coronavirus cabinet that Israel is facing a third wave of the coronavirus, noting a sharp increase in the number of newly diagnosed infections over the past few days.
“We’re in the midst of a new outbreak,” Prof. Nachman Ash told the Coronavirus Cabinet Sunday.
“You can see the rise in the number of tests and in the increase in the number of positive tests coming back. We are on our way to getting to the outer limit in terms of testing, and at that point, the percentage of positive tests will soar.”
During the meeting of the Coronavirus Cabinet, National Security Council chief Meir Ben-Shabbat told ministers that “There is a constant increase in the infection rate.”