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Days Before Lockdown Ends, “Israeli” Health Minister Pushes for Extension

Days Before Lockdown Ends, “Israeli” Health Minister Pushes for Extension
folder_openZionist Entity access_time3 years ago
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By Staff, Agencies

Despite an extensive vaccination campaign, coronavirus cases in the “Israeli” entity remain high and show little signs of decreasing.

The “Israeli” entity is in the midst of a third nationwide lockdown, while the government eyes extending it further. The entity has halted inbound and outbound flights and closed down its overland border crossings.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip await vaccines, which could take at least a few more months to get to a big enough part of society. The entity currently has 76,331 active cases; 4,609 people have died.

Figures from the entity’s health maintenance organization Clalit reveal huge disparities in the inoculation rate between different groups in al-Quds [Jerusalem].

Among those aged over 60, there was a 91% rate of vaccination in the general public, compared to only 39 percent of the Palestinian population.

The data also shows that the rate of vaccination in the ultra-Orthodox community is far lower than other Jewish residents, with only 73% of ultra-Orthodox residents over the age of 60 receiving the COVID-19 vaccination.

The gaps are even larger in younger age brackets. Between the ages of 40 and 59, 65 percent of the general public got vaccinated, as opposed to 40% and 19% of the ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian communities respectively.

The “Israeli” entity’s so-called Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said it would be "irresponsible" not to extend the entity’s nationwide lockdown, set to expire on Sunday, ahead of a cabinet meeting on the issue. "We won't be asking, but demanding the government to extend the lockdown," he said at a press briefing at Barzilai Medical Center in the southern city of Ashkelon.

"The lockdown isn't as effective as we would have liked, but without it the system would have crashed," Edelstein added, arguing Israel could have seen up to 30,000 new cases a day – more than three times the current rate – if it weren't for the lockdown.

He said that despite an "exceptional" vaccination campaign, the variants of the virus as keeping infection rates high.

"We are doing what we can," Edelstein added. "But the situation in hospitals is very difficult," he said, citing a figure of more than 1,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. "We haven't had anything like this since the crisis began."

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