A group of young people gather on the streets of Tel Aviv without masks to talk.
Israel’s vaccination drive is working, with people going outside without masks from Sunday for the first time in a year, and is a milestone in the country’s fight against the epidemic through vaccination. The country launched the vaccination campaign last December, and more than half the population has completed two doses of the vaccine, one of the highest in the world.
Twenty-six-year-old Gamrka, who got out of her car near Jerusalem’s busy shopping boulevard Jaffa Street, said after she removed her mask, “It’s weird, but it’s great.” “You can’t pretend you don’t know people anymore,” she says with a laugh. For Gamulka, who works as an ad hoc case manager, the good news came at the right time, just two weeks before her wedding. She says, “It’s so nice to celebrate with everyone now that I don’t have to wear a mask. The wedding photos are going to be great! I’m so much more at ease. We can start our lives fresh.” However, people are still required to wear masks in indoor public places.
Israel launched the vaccination program on December 20 last year, and so far about 53 percent of the population has completed two doses of the vaccination. If the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is available to people over the age of 16, about 81% of eligible vaccinees have already been vaccinated. Since the vaccine does not take full effect until two doses have been administered, the epidemic was not immediately and effectively alleviated in the early days of vaccination in Israel, and the daily increase in cases remained at a high level of about 8,000, and even reached about 12,000 at one point. These figures had led some people to question the effectiveness of vaccination. As time passed and the vaccination rate increased, the effect of vaccination became clear. Starting in mid-February, the number of new cases per day decreased rapidly and is now down to double digits. At one point in late March, the basic number of new coronavirus infections dropped to 0.53, the lowest in the past six months.
There are no longer any “red zones” in Israel where the outbreak is severe. This has allowed schools, bars, restaurants and indoor parties to reopen.
The Israeli Ministry of Health announced last Thursday that people will no longer be required to wear masks in outdoor public places from Sunday. Foreigners are still restricted from entering the country, and unvaccinated Israelis returning from abroad are required to quarantine themselves for fear of contracting a variant of the Chinese Communist virus. Authorities have now found seven cases of a variant of the Chinese Communist virus in the country.
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