City of Betar Ilit Placed Under COVID-19 Lockdown

Jerusalem, 8 July, 2020 (TPS) -- The city of Betar Ilit, situated south of Jerusalem, will be placed under a full lockdown for a week following the high numbers of Coronavirus (COVID-19) infections in the city.

The Ministerial Committee on Declaring Restricted Zones decided Tuesday night to authorize the military commander of Judea and Samaria to declare the municipal area of Betar Ilit as a restricted zone for seven days, from 13:00 on Wednesday and until next Wednesday.

Accordingly, entry into, and exit from, Betar Ilit will be restricted, as will be movement and businesses within the city itself.

Betar Ilit, an ultra-Orthodox city, has at least 268 active patients, 169 of which were diagnosed in the past week.

This measure was the latest to be implemented by the government which has been scrambling to stem the spread of the virus in the country and reintroduced several of the COVID-19 related restrictions Israel emerged from only weeks ago.

The number of COVID-19 infections in Israel continued to rise sharply, and the Ministry of Health updated Tuesday night that at least 1,052 new infections were registered in the past day, bringing the total number of active cases in Israel to 13,653.

Some 85 of the patients are in serious condition, of whom 34 are on life support.

Of the total 32,222 cases documented since the outbreak in the country, 18,227 have recovered and 342 have died of the virus, five of them in the past day.