Armed soldiers may patrol streets with police, with those 65 and older forced to stay at home as the most at-risk population.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The government is meeting Sunday evening by teleconference to decide on further restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
“I want us to start a three-week closure from Monday until [after] Passover,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday when ordering the various ministries to present their plans within 48 hours for dealing with such a lockdown.
The Jewish holiday commemorating the Exodus from Egypt starts the night of April 8th and runs for a week.
According to Israel Hayom, representatives of the Health Ministry had some good news for the cabinet, in that there has been a slowdown in the rate of contagion in the country. The idea of restricting the public even further is to ensure that the numbers go down still more.
“You have to remember that the numbers we see now are a result of the steps that were taken a week or two ago, or even earlier,” said a senior official. “They were very difficult steps to take with an enormous economic and social cost, but they’ve proven themselves and the prime minister doesn’t regret them. Now we are in the situation that if we relax [restrictions] it will be a mistake that cannot be corrected.”
A number of suggestions have already been publicized from the Friday meeting. These include decreasing the number of people allowed to travel to work from 30 percent to some 20 percent, ordering a two- to three-hour window exclusively for elderly shoppers to buy food, and forcing all those age 65 and over into lockdown as this is the most at-risk population.
All those who have died in the country so far have been elderly people with pre-existing health conditions.
The cabinet members agreed to add 1,000 inspectors to help police check that people are keeping proper distance from each other in supermarkets and pharmacies, or are within the acceptable range of distance from their homes.
Permission has also been granted for hundreds of armed soldiers to join police in patrolling the streets. They may possibly be used mainly in contagion hotspots such as ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, the Arab sector and areas where foreigners are concentrated, such as south Tel Aviv.
Such areas, a senior source told Ynet, may be shut down completely so that it would be easier for the authorities to enforce the health guidelines and to bring home the seriousness of the situation.
“We want to scare [them],” he said simply.
Over the weekend, 1,296 people were caught by the authorities for flouting the health guidelines, the vast majority for being in public for reasons that are currently unlawful. Fifty-eight businesses were also forced to close for violating current restrictions.
Netanyahu said that he would review the lockdown week by week. “I’ll have an escape hatch,” he said. “If the situation improves, I’ll be able to release the economy a little bit.”
武装士兵可能会与警察一起在街道上巡逻，使65岁及65岁以上的老人被迫留在家里，成为最危险的人群。
巴蒂亚·耶伦贝格（Batya Jerenberg），《世界以色列新闻》
政府周日晚上将通过电话会议开会，以决定进一步的限制措施以遏制冠状病毒的传播。
总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡（Benjamin Netanyahu）周五下令各部委在48小时内提出应对此类封锁的计划时说：“我希望我们从星期一开始，直到逾越节后，关闭三周。”
纪念出埃及的犹太节日从 4 月8日晚上开始，为期一周。以色列人Hayom认为，卫生部的代表对内阁有一些好消息，因为该国的传染率有所下降。进一步限制公众的想法是确保人数进一步减少。
一位高级官员说：“您必须记住，我们现在看到的数字是一两个星期甚至更早采取的措施的结果。” “采取这些措施非常困难，付出了巨大的经济和社会代价，但它们已经证明了自己，总理也不会后悔。现在我们处于一种情况，如果我们放松[限制]，那将是一个无法纠正的错误。”
星期五会议已经发布了许多建议。这些措施包括将允许出差工作的人数从30％减少到大约20％，为老年人购物者订购两到三个小时的专用窗口，以购买食物，并强迫所有65岁以上的人处于锁定状态最危险的人群。 到目前为止，该国所有死亡的人都是具有健康状况的老年人。
内阁成员同意增加1,000名检查员，以帮助警察检查人们在超市和药房之间保持适当的距离，或在距家可接受的距离范围内。
还批准了数百名武装士兵与警察一起在街上巡逻。它们可能主要用于传染性热点地区，例如超正统社区，阿拉伯地区以及外国人聚集的地区，例如特拉维夫南部。
一位资深消息人士告诉Ynet称，这些地区可能会被完全关闭，以便当局更容易执行卫生指南并了解情况的严重性。 “我们想吓[他们，”他简单地说。
上周末，当局逮捕了1,296人，原因是他们无视卫生指南，其中绝大多数是由于目前非法的原因在公众场合露面。 58家企业也因违反现行限制而被迫关闭。
内塔尼亚胡表示，他将每周复审封锁。他说：“我将有一个逃生舱口。” “如果情况有所改善，我将能够释放一点经济。”