Israel's top coronavirus health official, Prof. Ronni Gamzu, recommended on Monday to lift restrictions from three cities have recently seen a decline in coronavirus infection rates.
Gamzu asked the Ministerial Committee for the Designation of "Restricted Areas", which discusses restrictions on localities with high contagion rates of coronavirus, to lift a lockdown imposed on the ultra-Orthodox towns of Rekhasim, Modi'in Illit and Beitar Illit alongside the Kiryat Mattersdorf neighborhood in Jerusalem.
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Police checkpoint in Beiter Illit during coronavirus lockdown
(Photo: Eli Mandelbaum)
All four communities were formerly designated as "red zones" according to Gamzu's "traffic light model," which gives local authorities more autonomy in dealing with the pandemic, and were left in lockdown despite a nationwide closure was lifted from the rest of the country on Sunday.
The committee is expected to discuss removing restrictions from Rekhasim Monday night and hold another meeting Tuesday morning about the other communities once up to date morbidity data becomes available.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry reported Monday evening that 896 new cases of coronavirus were diagnosed since midnight which are 3.5% of all coronavirus tests conducted that day.
Additionally, 11 Israelis have succumbed to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the total national death toll to 2,260.
The ministry further reported there are currently 632 patients hospitalized in serious condition, among them 246 patients on ventilators.