At a time when the entire world is struggling to tackle the second wave of COVID-19, Israel has tasted success in its war against the Pandemic! The Jewish Nation recently lifted a public mask mandate, apart from fully reopening its Education System. Jerusalem has eased Coronavirus restrictions, after its Mass Vaccination Drive. Reports suggest that pupils of all primary and secondary schools returned to classrooms on April 11, with the Health Department ending the year-long requirement to wear a mask at public spaces. However, masks are still needed at indoors and also at large gatherings.

In the first quarter of 2021, Israel inoculated a majority of its population against the COVID-19 at a fast pace in a world-leading Vaccination Campaign. The move has allowed the concerned authorities to lift most of its coronavirus restrictions. Israel has also announced that it would start receiving vaccinated foreign tourists in May.

Meanwhile, Nachman Ash – the National Virus Czar of Israel – has said that to remove the mask at outdoors, and to reinitiating in-class studies would be a “calculated risk”, keeping in mind that the country has recorded more than 836,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 6,331 deaths since the break out of the Pandemic in 2019-20. According to the Health Ministry, nearly 53% of Israel’s 9.3 million citizens have so far received two shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Ash has further rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prediction of another vaccine round in six months, stating that he did not know when the expected campaign would begin.

Israel had begun the Vaccination Campaign in December, and serious cases and deaths have fallen precipitously, since then. It has allowed the Economy to fully reopen. The Vaccination Campaign also covered the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, although Israel has been accused of not sharing more of its supplies there.

Meanwhile, a UN Report has stated that Brazil, China, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, South Africa, Uruguay and Vietnam also performed relatively well in managing the COVID-19 crisis. The Report compares their experiences to countries that have struggled a lot to deal with the Pandemic effectively. According to the World Body, health-care, social protection and overall governance systems of those countries are the three main determinants of COVID-19 strategies and their success. It garners insights and lessons that might prove useful to other nations that may experience future rounds of outbreaks.

Although unique country-specific factors played an important role in confronting the Pandemic in some countries, their role was generally evident in one or more of these determinants, states the Report. The findings of the UN suggest that establishing universal health care and social protection systems and improving governance need to be taken up by all countries as immediate tasks, and not as distant goals, if the world is to be prepared for future epidemics.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das