Concern about the omicron variant of the coronavirus and the increase in the number of Covid cases led the government of Israel to adopt this Monday (20) a recommendation by the Ministry of Health that includes the United States in the red list of nations for travel.
Now, Israeli citizens or permanent residents of the country are banned from traveling to the US unless they have permission from an exceptions committee — something bureaucratic and difficult to access. In addition, US travelers are prohibited from traveling to Israel unless they are Israeli citizens, even though they must quarantine at least seven days upon disembarking.
Tel Aviv had included, this Sunday (19), other nations on the red list, such as Spain, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates. The bans were already valid for some European countries, such as the United Kingdom and Denmark, and for Africans. The complete list is available on this website.
In a TV speech, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett argued that Israel bought some time by moving quickly to limit travel when the omicron was detected in November — at the time, African nations were added to the red list, which had been reset in early October . The situation, however, changed, and the prime minister said that a new outbreak of the disease should start in a few weeks.
Israel has registered, so far, 134 confirmed infections by omicron and 307 suspected cases, according to the Ministry of Health. The new restrictions go into effect this Tuesday (21), at 19:00 GMT.
Brazil is currently on the orange list of countries, which means displacements are allowed but not recommended by the government due to the local infection rate. Travelers arriving from Brazil and who are fully vaccinated must undergo a test to detect the coronavirus upon landing and remain isolated until they receive the negative result of another test, which must be carried out on the third day after entering Israel. Those unvaccinated, in turn, must complete the two-week isolation.
Israel has 1.36 million confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, according to figures from Oxford University’s Our World in Data platform. Since the last week of November, the moving average of daily new cases has grown, reaching 753 this Sunday.
Official government data show that at least 62% of the country’s population has a complete vaccination schedule, and 44% have already received the third dose, or booster dose, applied in the country since July.
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