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Return of the Mask Mandate

Israel’s indoor mask mandate will be reinstated starting Sunday due to the rise in COVID-19 cases, coronavirus czar Dr. Nachman Ash said in a press conference on Thursday.

Israel’s Health Ministry recorded 169 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest increase in the last two months and the fourth consecutive day in which new cases exceeded 100.

Ash said that while the government had no plans to bar Israelis from leaving or re-entering the country, “I call on the public to consider whether going abroad at this time is essential. It is advisable to avoid nonessential travel abroad.”

Testing and the isolation of those who return from abroad would make a travel ban unnecessary, Ash said, but observing proper isolation procedures was “our Achilles’ heel.”

“Isolation violators are everybody’s problem – that’s the way the disease is spreading now,” Ash said.

Health Ministry statistics show that the virus is now spreading most rapidly in Israel among young people, ages 10 to 19. On Monday, the ministry recommended that children ages 12 to 15 be vaccinated.

Nevertheless, Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Chezy Levy told Kan public radio earlier this week that 40-50% of the new cases were among people already vaccinated.

This worrying statistic could be a sign that vaccination is less effective against the aggressive delta variant, which is quickly taking over as the dominant variant around the world. Levy said that 70% of new infections were from the delta variant.

But Ash explained that because most Israelis are already vaccinated, the percentage of vaccinated people among those now testing positive was also likely to increase. “It does not say anything about the effectiveness of the vaccine. We are trying to analyze the data to really see if there is a sign of declining vaccine efficacy.”

On Thursday, Pfizer Israel’s medical director, Alon Rappaport, told Army Radio that the Pfizer vaccine was 90% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 cases, and 95% effective in preventing severe cases that require hospitalization. These statistics, he said, were based on studies that included places where the delta variant was dominant.

Ash cautioned at his Thursday presser that, due to the delta strain, a higher rate of vaccination would be necessary to reach the herd immunity threshold. “We will need at least 80% – and maybe even more than that – to reach herd immunity. We are still far from that number.”

Here are the latest COVID-19 numbers for the Middle East and North Africa as of 8 pm Greenwich Mean Time (UTC±0) on Thursday.

Country Confirmed Cases Deaths Recovered Active Cases
Afghanistan 111,592 4,519 66,799 40,274
Algeria 137,049 3,660 95,331 38,058
Bahrain 264,107 1,330 256,933 5,844
Cyprus 73,999 374 72,199 1,426
Djibouti 11,597 155 11,436 6
Egypt 278,761 15,967 207,411 55,383
Iran 3,140,129 83,473 2,797,105 259,551
Iraq 1,311,093 16,999 1,217,982 76,112
Israel 840,430 6,429 833,212 789
Jordan 748,685 9,703 732,475 6,507
Kuwait 344,799 1,894 324,578 18,327
Lebanon 543,865 7,832 530,689 5,344
Libya 191,660 3,185 177,106 11,369
Mauritania 20,473 483 19,514 476
Morocco 528,180 9,265 515,030 3,885
Oman 256,542 2,848 224,077 29,617
Pakistan 951,865 22,108 896,821 32,936
Palestinian Territories 313,015 3,555 306,532 2,928
Qatar 221,378 587 218,928 1,863
Saudi Arabia 479,390 7,730 460,338 11,322
Somalia 14,868 775 7,216 6,877
Sudan 36,558 2,750 30,404 3,404
Syria 25,248 1,855 21,766 1,627
Tunisia 395,362 14,406 342,598 38,358
Turkey 5,393,248 49,417 5,254,708 89,123
United Arab Emirates 618,148 1,773 597,008 19,367
Yemen 6,898 1,355 3,990 1,553
Total 17,258,939 274,427 16,222,186 762,326