Arrivals on flight from New York told they’re being sent to mandatory quarantine

Passengers who have just landed on a flight from New York are being sent to mandatory quarantine at Jerusalem’s Prima Hotel, Channel 12 reports.

It shows a soldier with a megaphone informing the new arrivals of the requirement.

Many of the arrivals are “very angry” about this, since they had expected to go into self-quarantine at home.

The passengers were met on landing by officials in white protective suits who took their temperatures. They were than gathered — at a safe distance from each other — to be briefed about their journey into quarantine, the report says.

This process contrasts with what has reportedly been the norm on many, if not all, of the few remaining flights into Israel in recent days. Despite assurances last week from Defense Minister Naftali Bennett that arrivals from virus hotspots such as New York, Italy, Spain and France were all being checked on landing for symptoms of the virus, and all being sent to one of the quarantine hotels, they were in fact walking unchecked straight out of the airport and into Israel.

Correcting what former Health Ministry director general Gabi Barabash called “idiotic” management that risked turning Israel into “a branch of New York,” a virus epicenter, those promised procedures are now apparently, if belatedly, coming into force.

Bennett had said Prime Minister Netanyahu chose to cancel his instructions; Netanyahu’s office said earlier today that the PM has ordered mandatory quarantine at the various repurposed hotels for all arrivals in Israel.