Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has decided against conducting a preliminary pilot program, and has instead announced his intention to cancel the quarantine requirement for school children learning in “green” areas, starting from next week.
After his daily meeting with the national coronavirus taskforce, Bennett stated that, “In the framework of our regular reassessment of the situation, and in light of our success in dealing with the fourth wave of the coronavirus – the numbers are dropping daily – I am requesting the finding of a solution for advancing the exemption of quarantine for students in green locales, by next week. I do not wish to wait until October 15; I want to ensure that a sensible and effective solution is found prior to that date.
“The main point to stress,” Bennett added, “is the importance of conducting coronavirus testing on those in quarantine. I want to see medical teams conducting the tests in the classrooms,” he specified.
Bennett also told members of his taskforce that, “I want you all to present potential solutions. I want to ensure that parents have peace of mind, that they can send their children out to school and get out to work themselves, and that we put an end to this period of uncertainty. What we should be doing now is adjusting to dropping infection rates, alongside ensuring that contagion does not start to rise again. A fine balance has to be attained between these twin objectives,” he noted.
Indeed, the numbers of serious cases of coronavirus in the country’s hospitals is continuing to drop, as is the number of new cases diagnosed – just 2,502 in the last 24 hours out of 109,055 tests conducted, which is the lowest figure since the end of July this year.
487 people are now defined as in serious condition, with 190 of them on respirators. The death toll currently stands at 7,855 people.
The number of people who have received their third, or booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine now stands at 3,634,984, up significantly from the previous month but still substantially lower than the number of those who have received two doses (5,666,867) or just the first dose (6,159,094 people).