Israel has just taken a radical step in its fight against the spread of the coronavirus. In fact, the country will impose the health pass on children over the age of three, authorities announced Wednesday night. The goal of the Hebrew state is to avoid further confinement.
Faced with an increase in pollution in recent weeks linked to the spread of the Delta variant, the country launched on July 29 this pass, called “green badge”, which allows access to certain places to people who have been totally vaccinated, cured. Covid-19 disease or negative test. Therefore, the Israeli government has extended these measures to children from 3 to 12 years old.
Israel also established rapid antigen test stations across the country on Sunday, run by the Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service, and made quarantine mandatory for people returning from most countries in the world, vaccinated or not. Screening at these stations costs 52 shekels (about 17 euros) and allows you to obtain a health pass from the Ministry of Health, valid for 24 hours. “It will be supported by the state for children between the ages of 3 and 12 from August 18,” the effective date of the measure, the Prime Minister’s office said.
Israel, a country of nine million people, was one of the first to launch a mass vaccination campaign in December, thanks to an agreement with Pfizer. The campaign has made it possible to reduce the number of cases, but in recent weeks contamination has increased again with the spread of the Delta variant, in unvaccinated adults but also in people vaccinated more than six months ago. In the last 24 hours, 5,802 new cases have been identified. According to the latest official report, the country has registered a total of 918,237 infections and 6,587 deaths since the start of the pandemic.