Israel will soon reopen its gates to foreign tourists, even though it is recording one of the world’s highest rates of coronavirus infections.
The Tourism Ministry of Israel on September 5 said that it will begin allowing organised tourists across the globe into the country, starting from September 19.
However, the tourists have to maintain the travel guidelines to enter the country. The ministry has said that tourists will have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, show a negative PCR test before boarding their flight and go under both PCR and Serological testing upon arrival. Passengers have to acknowledge the mandatory quarantine requirement in the hotels until the test results arrive, a process expected to take no longer than 24 hours.
Tourists from the red-listed countries with high infection rates, including Brazil and Turkey, will not be granted permission to visit the country for the time being.
To welcome tourists, Israel launched a similar program in May after inoculating most of its population earlier this year. However, the program had been suspended in August due to the outbreak of delta variant.
The country has recently begun administering booster shots (that now stands at 86%) to anyone who was vaccinated more than five months ago. Israel has administered at least 14,461,389 doses of COVID vaccines, including people who only got their first doses, so far. The acceleration in the vaccination drive has shown signs of controlling the Indian variant outbreak, permitting the government to begin allowing tourists to come back.
However, with a 92% of peak and rising in Covid-19 infections, Israel continues to register 9,494 fresh Covid-19 infections and 19 deaths on an average for the past 7 days. In the last 24 hours, it has recorded 11,800 fresh cases and 23 fatalities. With this, Israel has registered a total of 11.8 lakh cases and 7,406 deaths so far.
