Top health official: Schools likely won’t reopen next week

A top Health Ministry gives some details on the plan to gradually lift the current coronavirus lockdown, dubbing it a “strategy for preventing the next lockdown.”

Sharon Elrai, acting head of the ministry’s public health services division, says the latest figures indicating a slowdown in infections are “encouraging,” but notes they are from the weekend, when testing levels typically plummet.

“We still don’t think we’ve reached the goal. We’ll see the figures from today and tomorrow. We hope that with the control over morbidity, the number of deaths and critical patients will drop,” Elrai says.

She says the plan for lifting the lockdown will be gradual and that in the first stage, the 1 kilometer restriction on movement for non-essential needs will be scrapped.

“In the second stage, work without [in person] customers. In the third stage receiving customs, commerce, guesthouses and houses of worship [will open]. Later restaurants, cafes and gyms,” she says.

Elrai also says schools will likely not reopen next Sunday, when the restrictions are expected to be lifted.