Health Minister: Lockdown Will Be Much Longer Than 10 Days

Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told KAN News on Tuesday that the current lockdown “will not end with anyone saying that everything is over and everything is fine.” He said that the current full lockdown would have to be lifted, carefully, in stages, differently to the previous one.

In a message to the people, delivered on Motzoei Yom Kippur, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu assured the public that by October 1 the health system would be strengthened to deal with 1,500 patients in serious condition.

On social media, he also confirmed that the current national lockdown would last at least a month. The premier also said that a lockdown exit strategy was being devised to prevent the country from relapsing into another national quarantine.

Israel surpassed the United States in the number of deaths per day from coronavirus in relation to the population. The death toll has reached 1,507, and there are currently 65,025 people with corona, including 1,541 who are hospitalized, 755 in serious condition. Two hundred and seven of them are on ventilators.

In a post on Tuesday, Deputy health minister Yoav Kisch wrote that Israel has purchased hundreds of rapid coronavirus tests to allow for an additional 20,000 rapid tests a day.

These will be performed the same way as the standard PCR swab test, supervised by a medical professional.