Israel makes wearing face masks indoors mandatory again

Israel on Friday reintroduced the mandatory wearing of face masks indoors in a bid to counteract rising coronavirus infection rates.

The measure was almost completely lifted in mid-June, but from Friday everyone was required to wear a face mask again indoors, the Health Ministry said.

People were only exempted from the rule when exercising or at home. It also doesn’t apply to small children.

The ministry also recommended wearing a mouth-and-nose covering during large outdoor events like the Pride Parade taking place in Tel Aviv on Friday.

For the first time since April, Israel recorded over 100 daily new COVID-19 infections on Monday, most of them of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, which was first detected in India.

Among the newly infected were many young person’s as well as vaccinated people.

Vaccines help keep people from getting seriously ill even if they are infected with COVID-19.

Over 5.5 million Israelis have already received one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, while about 5.2 million have received their second dose.

The vaccination drive in the country of 9 million has been very successful and was hailed internationally.

Vaccination rates had slowed down recently, but with case numbers on the rise, more people are getting vaccinated again.