Israel's Corona Cabinet approves 'Traffic Light' plan to tackle pandemic

Israel's Corona Cabinet on August 30 approved the "traffic light" plan to block the spread of coronavirus in the country. The plan that was put forward by the Health Ministry of Israel, says local authorities will now decide the coronavirus restrictions in the country by classifying cities and towns in four categories, Red, Orange, Yellow, and Green. 

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According to the Ministry of Health statement, the classification will be based on the morbidity rate that will be released on a weekly basis. Each town and city will be given a morbidity rate, based on which the place will be classified as Red, Orange, Yellow, or Green. As per the statement, a morbidity rate of 7.5 or upwards will classify the place as a Red zone and gatherings in such areas will be limited to 20 people outdoors and 10 people indoors.

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Accordingly, a place that has a morbidity rate between 6 and 7.5 will fall under the Orange category. The Yellow zone will be defined if the area has a morbidity rate between 4.5 and 6, while Green zones must have a morbidity rate below 4.5 to be defined as the same. The plan will take effect from September 6 onwards. 

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The state of emergency in Israel which was due to end on September 6 has also been extended by sixty more days, starting from September 7, 2020, until November 6th, 2020. The government made the resolution keeping in mind that a real risk still remains for the extensive spread of the coronavirus. 

COVID-19 pandemic

Israel has recorded over 1,17,000 coronavirus cases so far, of which at least 939 people have lost their lives. The number of daily cases started to rise in Israel since the beginning of July as the country has been continuously reporting thousand or so cases for the past two months. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic that has spread outwards from China has infected over 25 million people to date, while more than 8,44,000 have died, The United States remains the worst-hit country across the globe with 6 million cases and 1,82,000 deaths, followed by Brazil, India, and Russia. 

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(Image Credit: AP)