In a televised press conference on Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the nation that it is the government’s goal to completely re-open the economy by the end of April. The staggered re-opening of the economy, some of which has been shut for nearly a year. The Prime Minister presented a five-step plan to bring about a fully re-opened economy.  The first phase was described as the current one. Phase two scheduled for next week, will see more schoolchildren return to in-person learning. Phase three, in two week’s time, will see the green passport program expanded. During the last week of March, the government expects to finish the vaccination campaign and have all citizens vaccinated. This last step will allow for a full re-opening of the economy in April, which is stage 5. Netanyahu was joined at the press conference by top Health Ministry’s officials, heads of the health funds (HMOs), and Magen David Adom. During the press conference, Netanyahu said that while more than 5 million Israelis either received at least the first shot or recovered from the virus, there are still about 1.2 million individuals over 16 who have not been vaccinated. Netanyahu blamed false claims in the media and the internet as the cause of the vaccination slowdown. “Why do we have such a gap? There are many reasons, but mostly because of fake news.” Netanyahu called on the public to go and get vaccinated numerous times and stressed that Israel is the only country in the world that is not lacking in vaccines. Netanyahu added that he has been in contact with both Pfizer and Moderna, in order to discuss the possibility of building vaccine factories in Israel. He added that Israel was also in contact with six other countries to build joint facilities. The Jerusalem Post reported that earlier in the day, the Knesset approved a bill allowing the Health Ministry to share the identity of people who are eligible to be inoculated but who have not done so – including names, ID numbers, phone numbers, and addresses – to be transmitted to municipalities and Education and Welfare ministries upon active request. According to the bill, actively encouraging individuals to get inoculated will be the only permitted use of the material and the information must be deleted within 60 days. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

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