Coronavirus czar Professor Nachman Ash responded to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's statement to Fox News that Israel is over the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking with 103 FM Radio, Prof. Ash said: "I don't know what the Prime Minister meant. I am sure that the Prime Minister knows that we are worried about the recent rise in infection, both as a result of Purim events and as a result of the widescale reopening of the economy. There is definitely a possibility that we will backtrack."
"If we don't act responsibly, if we are not careful about the guidelines, masks, all the distancing and the Green Badge rules, then there's a possibility of a fourth lockdown. We still need to be cautious and there is a concern infection rates will rise."
Regarding the reopening of Ben Gurion International Airport, which is scheduled for Sunday, Prof. Ash said: "Anyone returning from abroad should know that he is required to strictly quarantine, because there's the possibility that he is bringing new mutations into the State of Israel."
"The decision to allow many Israelis stranded abroad to return home was complex but correct. There is a very large difficulty in telling citizens to remain abroad, and the use of simple means helps us manage the risk. It's not that this risk is a sentence. Anyone who returns from abroad does a test and goes into quarantine. If we are careful about these two things, the chance that a mutation will enter is low. It's in our hands."
At the same time, Prof. Ash expressed concern over the plans to further reopen the economy on Sunday.
"It could be that this reopening will cause a renewed rise in infection rates," he warned. "We will follow the data and if we see that there is a rise, we will need to backtrack. It's not something happy, I feel how hard this is for everyone and how much we want to go back to normal life, because at this moment there's an expectation that the vaccines will protect us. I hope that the vaccines will do the job, even more than we expected them to."