A medical staff member wearing protective gear tends to a patient in the COVID-19 ward at Beilinson Hospital Rabin Medical Center in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva on Feb. 1, 2022. (Gideon Markowicz/JINI via Xinhua)
JERUSALEM, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Israel will not lift more COVID-19 restrictions amid rising infections "in several locations around the world," the prime minister's office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Following a consultation meeting with health officials, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz decided that the mandatory mask-wearing will not be lifted, but the measure will be reviewed again in April, according to the statement.
In addition, the installation of air filter systems in classrooms will be stepped up and the government will continue the vaccination campaign calling on the entire population over the age of 12 to receive the third dose of coronavirus vaccine, the statement said.
Passengers walk with their luggage as they arrive at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 1, 2022. (Photo by Gil Cohen Magen/Xinhua)
The announcement came about two weeks after Israel lifted many of the coronavirus restrictions. On March 1, the government cancelled the Green Pass scheme which allowed entry to public venues only to vaccinated people.
Earlier in the day, the health ministry announced the detection of a new coronavirus strain, a combined strain of the original Omicron lineage BA.1 and its subvariant BA.2, from two arriving passengers at the Ben Gurion International Airport, the ministry said in a statement.
On Wednesday evening, the ministry reported that 6,332 new coronavirus cases were confirmed over the past day, bringing the total number of infections in the 9.2-million-population country to 3,737,352. ■
