COVID-19: Israel says Delta variant infecting vaccinated people, mask rule reintroduced

Israel on Thursday prepared to reinstate the mask rule as it reported a Delta variant surge that infected nearly 50 percent of the country’s vaccinated population. In a major setback for the world’s most vaccinated country, the health officials said that more than half the cases of the novel coronavirus were breakthrough infections. Hebrew newspaper Haaretz, quoted the director-general of Israel's health ministry saying that those who had come in contact with the vaccinated people infected with the hypervirulent delta variant will now have to quarantine for at least 14 days, mandatorily. 

This comes nearly two months after Israelis walked barefaced without masks outdoors as the former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government abolished the outdoor mask rule in a bid to restore the pre-pandemic normality. The country vaccinated more than 81 percent of its population aged over 16 with 2 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the press “We’re leading the world right now.”

His statement came when the scientists were still determining the potency of the jabs against the highly transmissible Delta variant that India was fiercely fighting at the time, with mounting hospitalizations and out of control caseload of the “very dangerous” variant infections.

“Breathing Freely,” read the headline to Israel’s mass circulating daily Hayom as Israel scrapped the mask mandate, and citizens were seen without a mask for the first time anywhere in the world in a long time. However, in the latest setback, Levy told the state broadcaster Kan Bet that Israel has detected about 40 percent to 50 percent of new cases in the vaccinated population, although, he added that the symptoms of the otherwise sometimes severe infection were mostly mild.

'Still analyzing the figures..,' says Israeli Health Minister

The Israeli health minister added that the country was still analyzing the figures but the figures in the preliminary data is worrying as it underlines that the Delta variant is evading vaccine and spreading in a country like Israel where most of the population is fully vaccinated. The single daily average has spiked to 100 for the fourth consecutive day, the highest recorded since May, Levy told the newspaper. Israel’s Coronavirus Commissioner Professor Nachman Ash already issued orders to the public to wear masks indoors, saying that the rule will be declared “mandatory” as of next week, Jerusalem Post reported.