Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spent most of his day on Tuesday dealing with various aspects of the rising Delta variant outbreak.
A situational assessment scheduled for Bennett during the day was to take place together with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash, the head of the ministry’s division of public health services, the coronavirus commissioner and officials from the Health and Finance ministries.
Bennett was also scheduled to hold a discussion on how to expand the ability of the Health Ministry to deal with the pandemic — in addition to his visit in the afternoon to the IDF Home Front Command Epidemiological Investigations Task Force headquarters.
Bennett was accompanied by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, GOC Home Front Command Maj-Gen. Ori Gordin, task force commander Brig.-Gen. Yisrael Margalit and other senior officers during his briefing on the activities of the task force.
“The State of Israel is in a campaign against the Delta (variant) pandemic that is striking the entire world,” he said.
“As in every campaign, the defense establishment, the IDF, its commanders and soldiers, are at the forefront of the campaign, alongside healthcare personnel in this case.”
The prime minister praised the task force for its “exceptional work on all fronts – vaccinations, testing, connecting with civilians, information and epidemiological investigations.”
Bennett told reporters that 90 percent of severe coronavirus cases in Israel at present are in people older than 50. “This means that nine out of ten severe cases are people over 50,” he said.
“Therefore, I ask every Israeli citizen over 50 to be very careful in the coming weeks. Whoever is over 60 and has not yet been vaccinated — go. get. vaccinated,” he urged.
Nearly 600,000 Israeli citizens ages 60 and up have been vaccinated with a third “booster” shot. “The State of Israel is the only country in the world that is currently giving its older population the possibility of receiving a third inoculation, a booster,” Bennett underlined.
