Health Ministry proposes criteria for declaring areas with virus outbreaks ‘restricted zones’

The Health Ministry is proposing a set of criteria for declaring areas “restricted zones” due to a high number of coronavirus cases there.

These include having a total of more than 50 people in a community with the virus, or “another number that will be determined dynamically in accordance with the development of the morbidity [rate]”; an infection rate per 100,000 people higher than the national average; and a rate of increase in new cases over the last three days that is higher than the national average.

“Clear and equal criteria need to be determined for all the cities, areas and neighborhoods in Israel without any connection or affinity to the nature of the population,” Health Ministry Yaakov Litzman says in a statement.

He adds: “The specifications by which movement needs to only be limited in [areas with high] ultra-Orthodox concentrations is misguided and slander an entire public that adheres to the legal instructions and the rabbis.”

Litzman appears to be referring to calls for some areas with a high number of virus cases, many of them ultra-Orthodox, to be subject to stricter restrictions on movement, though it is unclear what specifications he is referring to that explicitly single out Haredi communities.