Israel: Prime Minister announces end of health pass

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced Thursday evening the “end” of the health pass, of which his country had been one of the pioneers, affirming that the wave of contamination linked to the Omicron variant was now fading in Israel.

“We are ending the use of the green passport (“Tav yaroq” in Hebrew, name given in Israel to the health pass, editor’s note), the Omicron wave has been curbed, there is now a sharp drop in the number of seriously ill and infected,” Naftali Bennett said in a statement following meeting with public health officials.

The Israeli government was one of the first countries to set up a health pass a year ago, shortly following the launch of a vast vaccination campaign, in order to fight once morest the Covid-19 pandemic. At the beginning of February, the government announced that it was canceling the obligation to have a pass to sit in cafes, restaurants, bars, sports halls or hotels, but had maintained it for other places, such as concert halls or cinemas.

Fighting the virus without “blocking” the economy

Earlier this week, thousands of Israelis converged on Jerusalem in cars or trucks from several cities across the country to demonstrate once morest pandemic-related health restrictions, mimicking convoys that appeared in Canada and swarmed to several countries. This convoy, which was destined for the Parliament in Jerusalem, caused major traffic jams on Monday once morest the backdrop of a concert of horns.

Israel was one of the first countries to launch a major vaccination campaign in December 2020, thanks to an agreement with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Today, almost half of the population has received three doses of the vaccine, which, according to health authorities, contributed to limiting the number of hospitalizations at the height of the wave of the Omicron variant.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has also repeated in recent weeks that he wants to fight the virus, in particular by encouraging vaccination, but without “blocking” the country’s economy which had contracted in the first months of the pandemic.