Against the backdrop of the discovery of more cases of the South African mutation in the country, some of which were brought into Israel by travelers returning from the United Arab Emirates, the government approved requiring all returnees on flights from Dubai to stay in state-run coronavirus hotels.
The Health Ministry recommended transferring all passengers from the UAE into these hotels, as well as people coming from Brazil, a move that was passed by the cabinet late Sunday and went into effect on Sunday at 1 a.m.
The decision is valid until January 27.
The cabinet also voted to extend the hotel requirement for people returning from South Africa and Zambia by 10 days, as well as the rule that anyone entering Israel would need to take two coronavirus tests – the first at the airport – and enter home isolation.
Four cases of the South African mutation were discovered through genetic sequencing in people who returned from Dubai last weekend, the Health Ministry reported over the weekend. The travelers had taken coronavirus tests at Ben-Gurion Airport upon their return and tested positive for the virus.
“We are continuing to deal with new variants entering the country through the airport,” coronavirus commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash said Sunday during an afternoon press briefing. There are 20 known cases of the variant in the country that resulted from seven chains of infection, he said. On Saturday night, the Health Ministry reported 12 cases.
The Health Ministry has “recommended that the UAE be included in the list of countries that require a stay in a coronavirus hotel upon return to Israel,” Ash said. It also is pushing to require that people entering Israel present a negative coronavirus test taken within 72 hours of arrival, he said.
Although it was reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was open to the move, it has so far not come to fruition.
According to New Right Party head Naftali Bennett, some 750,000 people entered Israel during the pandemic without being screened in advance.
“Instead of being photographed every two days next to a plane for PR purposes, Netanyahu and [Transportation Minister Miri] Regev should have made sure that every passenger entering Israel would be tested,” he said Sunday.
Requiring testing would have stopped the entry of any of the new mutations into Israel, Bennett said.
“The great failure of Netanyahu and Regev’s Ben-Gurion Airport policy embodies all the amateurism and indifference of this bad government,” he said. “While Netanyahu’s government imposed lockdowns and frustrated the country’s citizens, it left a huge loophole of infection through Ben-Gurion Airport.”
The Health Ministry has recommended that the airport shut down entirely. The government has not managed to move forward with such a move or with requiring a negative test due to legal obstacles.