On Sunday, Israel announced that they will close the airport for at least a week. This is their only major airport, so it's a big deal. They are closing off all international travel, hoping to vaccinate more of their citizens before it gets even worse. Starting on Monday at midnight, incoming and outgoing international flights at Ben Gurion Airport will stop until at least the end of January. The only exceptions would be cargo flights, medical evacuation, and firefighting flights. They will only allow departure for extreme cases like family funerals and court actions, but you will still need to be approved by health authorities. The prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, said: “No nation has done what we are about to do- we are hermetically sealing the country.” The reason for all this is to prevent having the virus’s mutations enter the country and for more people to get vaccinated.
Israel has surpassed all other countries in vaccination about 27 % of its population with at least the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. They expect to vaccinate another million over the next week. Israel’s cases are very high which has caused a big capacity at the hospitals. They believe that once more people get the second dose of the vaccine, things will begin to look better but are still worried about the new mutations of the virus. Some of these mutations seem to be more contagious and are expected to dominate in Israel within the next few weeks. They hope that closing the airport for the first time during this pandemic will give people more time to get the vaccine before these mutation cases rise.
I think what they are doing is smart and it's good that many of them have been vaccinated. Hopefully, closing the airport will pay off and cases will start to calm down. What do you guys think? Do you think closing the airport is a good idea?
Hi Maya! Although it's a pain and might make the airline companies lose money, I think it's a good idea. Covid has now been seen in mutations and is only getting worse. They're doing great with the distribution of the vaccine, but I think limiting travel would be best for Israel and the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteHi Maya! I think Israel has put combating COVID as one of their top priorities, which is super important. Making sure that the new mutations don't enter Israel is key in order to keep everyone safe. Israel has vaccinated so much of their population in comparison to other countries, so they're doing a great job at keeping everyone as safe and healthy as possible.
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