Demonstrators burned the Israeli flag on Monday as protests continued over reimposed COVID-19 health restrictions.
Israeli small business owners gathered in Tel Aviv to protest the way the government is handling the renewed coronavirus epidemic and to express their anger at the possibility of a future lockdown.
The US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention this week warned Americans against traveling to Israel. The agency issued its most severe alert – Level Four – on a recommended ban on travel to the Jewish State due to the current galloping rise in coronavirus cases there.
On Monday (August 9), more than 6,000 new cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed by medical personnel in Israel. A total of 6,275 positive results came back out of 130,669 tests that were carried out, for a positivity rate of 4.84 percent — the highest rate in the country since the beginning of March 2021.
The number of serious cases is also rising exponentially; on Tuesday morning the Health Ministry reported that 394 COVID-19 patients were listed in serious to critical condition, out of the total 648 coronavirus patients hospitalized across the country. There were 64 patients relying on ventilators for survival.
Earlier this month, several hundred Israelis protested in Tel Aviv against renewed
COVID-19 restrictions and vaccination measures.
On August 1, protesters flew a banner that read, “There’s no pandemic, it’s a con.” One poster brandished by protesters linked COVID-19 vaccines to the Nazis.