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ISRAEL LIFTED MANY of its coronavirus restrictions and started reopening its economy on Sunday as the country’s vaccination drive and third nationwide lockdown have started to bring down infections.
Most grade school and high school classes have reopened after a nearly two-month closure, along with museums, libraries, shopping centres and markets.
Some restrictions on the number of people in attendance remain in place.
The entire education system is expected to return to normal operations in early March.
Gyms, pools, cinemas and restaurants are reopening for people who have received two doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
Israel unveiled its plan to allow those who have been vaccinated to attend cultural events, fly abroad and patronise restaurants and health clubs by using a “green badge” app on Saturday ahead of the reopening of the economy.
However, the rollout of the app has been fraught with technical difficulties.
After striking a deal with Pfizer to trade data for doses, Israel’s vaccine campaign became the world’s speediest in the past two months.
Almost half of the country’s population of 9.3 million have received the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and nearly three million have had their second vaccination.
Israel has faced international criticism for largely excluding Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from its highly successful vaccination campaign.
The dispute highlights the Palestinians’ reliance on Israel even as they struggle to combat the pandemic on their own.
Last week, Israel facilitated the transfer of the first 2,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
The coronavirus is still spreading rapidly in Israel, however, and restrictions on movement and assembly have remained in place since the government imposed a countrywide lockdown in late December.
Israel has recorded at least 743,000 cases of Covid-19 and at least 5,521 deaths since the start of the pandemic last year.
Its three lockdowns have paralysed the economy and driven unemployment to more than 20%.
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Palestinian reliance on israel ??
They are in an open air prison controlled horribly by israel who have denied them access to covid vaccines and destroying aid from Ireland and others for the Palestinian people.
@Mr Bordello: I honestly could not believe that statement. Sure remember Ireland’s reliance on Britain in the 1840s?
@Mr Bordello: fake news
@Mr Bordello: horrible horrible comment from the article. Would it be the same kind of reliance that Israel has from the Western world
@Mr Bordello: fake news
@Mr Bordello: utter nonsense. Israel has not denied vaccines, that is just silly anti Israeli nonsense that can be debunked by even the most basic of research.
@Valthebear: yes just google
“Israel is good Palestinians are bad don’t want vaccine Israel is great” . This will ensure you see the good work Israel has done .
@Brendan Harlowe: even better Google Hamas procures millions of vaccines for the Palestinians people….oh oops they don’t care about their people
@Brendan Harlowe: Careful now, you’ll have the Anti-Semite enforcers after you. Don’t you know the rules of the internet?
We will not be there until May according to our Taoiseach who had a look in his crystal ball, worked out the odds and gave the nation a tip off, a kind of a heads up. Not backed by any data you understand, just a hunch, a feeling kinda.
That’s where we are now fellow citizens of this Republic.
@Gerry Ryan: *yawn* Are you finished?
@Séamus Heffernan: tough being an FFer Seamus, it’s one thing after another for ye
@Gerry Ryan: We may be one of the last countries out of this.
@Séamus Heffernan: A bit sleepy you have to be of of the FF Greens
@Michael Maher: even if we are the last ones they will turn the list up side down and we will be first. Problem solved
I watched the Documentary the other night, The Central Park Five about the five Black kids falsely convicted of raping a jogger back in the 80’s. A journalist from the time came out with a quote that could be said about the journalists in this Country right now. He said “ I was sorry I didn’t ask tougher questions back then” The media in this Country are giving the Government a free pass when it comes to the lockdowns and the shambles of a vaccine rollout.. If you speak out against any of it you’re railroaded and told to shut up. In Madrid right now Restaurants and Bars opening back up and the rest of Europe will soon follow suit. Meanwhile here, it could be August or September. The media harping on about the Airport to deflect away from the Governments shambolic approach to the lot of it.. Every so called journalist in this Country should hang their head in shame
@David Garland: add France,Germany,Italy,Poland,Romania…could be more but in this country’s I have friends and I speak with them recently. They have same restrictions but non of them have 5km or not travel abroad, only here in Ireland
@David Garland: what independent journalists left in this country?(who not cover the government)who have power to relate reality and ask questions?if you know one?please show me
@David Garland: ‘In Madrid restaurants are opening up’. Thats a vague statement. There is some level of restrictions being lifted in Madrid which has drawn criticism from heath experts. Spain isn’t near out of the woods yet, they had 397 deaths just 2 days ago. This idea that we are lagging behind most of Europe is a myth.
@Paul Mcnevin: Restaurants are opening in Madrid, plus they’re opening up in Mallorca from the 2nd of March.. It’s obvious at this stage hospitality is not the cause of these Covid cases. We’ve been essentially shut down here for the best part of a year and it’s made little or no difference.. Open everything up and let People get on with their lives because what’s happening now is a disgrace. People being made prisoners in their own homes and told not to go to work by People who’s jobs and wages haven’t been effected one bit.
@David Garland: Little or no difference? Are you for real? We opened up before Christmas and filled up the hospitals and ICU. We then reintroduced restrictions and those same numbers are steadily coming down.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: The hospitals and ICU’s are full that time of the year anyway.. You don’t remember thousands lying on hospital trolleys every January from the Seasonal flu, which there were zero cases of this year. Regardless the hospitals were going to be full with or without a lockdown. This Christmas baloney has to stop, you’d swear the pubs and restaurants were overflowing with People. I work in Dublin City centre every night of the week. Christmas was dead, the pubs were empty. There were more people in your local supermarket than there was in Temple Bar. Covid like the seasonal flu is a virus and it will spread no matter what. There has been countless papers been published already saying Lockdowns had little or no effect on the numbers. People like you giving out about lifting restrictions are obviously either working from home or have a cushy state paid job
@David Garland: with the exception of niall boylan
@Michael Byrne: Yes Niall Boylan is very good, all the mainstream politicians are running scared from him. Think he has sent email after email to the Health Minister to get him on his show but they’re ignored.. Donnelly will only go on RTE and the like where he’s asked pre approved questions
@Robert Robert: not true. In Italy it is forbidden to leave one’s region of residence, approximately the county, let alone travel outside Italy.
Only positive news is reported regarding the foremost apartheid country in the world. No mention of the withholding of 100 Russian vaccines destined for frontline healthcare workers in Gaza ‘for political reasons.’ By all means continue your whitewash reporting of israel but perhaps be a bit more balanced in it!.
@Anto Harris: It was 1000 doses, and they were allowed in after a 1 day delay…
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/17/first-1000-covid-vaccine-doses-to-enter-gaza-israel-says
@David Jordan: I left out a 0, typo. Their benevolence knows no bounds!!
The poor people in the world’s largest open air prison of Gaza will be the last to be vaccinated.
@roscommonrebel: I am sure Hamas is actively working for their wellbeing.
@Pablo Rojas Coppari: yep! Same
Way the original IRA wanted freedom for Irish citizens in 1916 by an illegal occupying force . They too were scorned .
Great job,Ireland next!
@Robert Robert: Next year you mean, given their lack of urgency so far.
@Gary Mander: c’mon be optimist,government do everything in the right way,people are relax like give this felling…and I’m questioning myself maybe we are the problem!?
@Robert Robert: What more can you expect from the Irish people? Stay in their bedrooms until Sept maybe?
The people of this country have done enough. It’s time the characters with the titles start to ramp up vaccine rollout.
@Robert Robert: ha ha the government spin doctors love you…….hold up…or maybe your one of then
@David cotter: believe me I’m not a doctor but quess what I’ve spoken with few of them,and told me before this situation hospital was full even trolleys, now lots of bed empty seems like this virus recover lots of different disease,and they are more relax than ever,I don’t know if this happens all over in Ireland or only in that hospital?!
@David Corrigan: well Davy, the vaccine is being rolled out, the issue is supply. Unless you’ve being living under a rock since Xmas you would have found out that there is a worldwide supply issue. We have the third highest vaccination rate in the EU. It’s not like there is a big warehouse in Dublin full of the vaccine just sitting there
@Robert Robert: It’s a bit early to be at the cans yeah?
@Patrick O Connell: They can do better Paddy. They had a year to get things in place. As John Taffer said, “I don’t embrace excuses. I embrace solutions”.
@Patrick O Connell: its an EU issue. plenty of countries rolling the vaccine out. problem in ireland this time around is, mickey martin and varadkar won’t release the rope a bit until so many are vaccinated. God knows how long that will be.
@Patrick O Connell: bollox, 26,000 doses of AstraZeneca arrived in Ireland awhile back and after 2 and half weeks they had administered 700 doses. I don’t know what the more recent figures are but that is a shambles.
@Malachi Shanks: agree totally with you.
@Patrick O Connell: yes, there is a supply issue, and the government have been unfairly targeted in that regard. However, we were 3rd highest in the EU. We have since dropped to 11th in the EU as of February 18th, and 16th overall in Europe.
Israel is the New Zealand of 2021. Everyone asking why can’t we do what they are doing without any thought for the geographical and political differences. Didn’t Israel offer a whole heap of personal medical data to Pfizer in exchange for this?
@David Clements: and introducing a passport for everyday living as good as forcing its citizens into compliance
@David Clements: Israel is displaying medical apartheid
@David Clements: Is anyone surprised by the world’s second most militarised country? The government makes decisions and the people follow like good little soldiers.
@Mary Fitzsimons: no, it’s not.
@Mary Fitzsimons: You mean Hamas with all its Iranian money isn’t helping its people? What a shocker
So about that destruction of Irish aid for the Palestinians the other day Israel….
Funny, the notion that a vaccine passport to simply live was laughed at and considered a conspiracy theory…no tin foil hats needed now!
If they not make this virus so much publicity, I bet was a simple sesonal flu and we lived ours like we do for decades…
@Robert Robert: What you talking bout Willis?
@Robert Robert:
Sounds like a plan, just ignore a global pandemic and we miraculously gain protection against it and our healthcare system doesnt collaspe
Comments deleted voicing opinion against getting vaccination?
Hospitality doesn’t actually count with this government because it’s full of low paid workers. Meanwhile Intel powers on and tech companies can do what they want. My advice to hospitality workers would be to retrain or emigrate
@Virgil: emigrate where exactly?
@davidMbyrne.com: “Societial discrimination against those who may just be able to think for themselves”..
Oh, I don’t think there much thinking involved, actually the opposite.
Only 1% of over 70 year olds in the UK, when offered a vaccine, chose to not to get vaccinated. People who didn’t want to get vaccinated were very rare.
“Less than 1 per cent of people aged over 70 years said they declined the offer of a vaccine”
Look at the benift v’s risk in that age group.
“The estimated age-specific IFR is very low for children and younger adults (eg, 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85.”
>2% of people over 70 die if they catch Sars-cov-2. Obviously the vaccine is saving lives.
@David Jordan: Oh for god sake. Hone in on character sets all you want, but I assume you get the premise of what I’m saying, even if the comment has been deleted. And who mentioned specific age groups? If you wanna go there, where’s your copy-and-past data and links showing the ‘benift v’s risk’ for the largely healthy younger demographics, those not as easily scared and those who are looking like they’ll take the brunt of the societal discrimination that will result from all of this?
And to reply to your earlier (deleted) reply, again honing in on something I stated, this ‘a vaccine that is neither proven to stop you getting the virus or passing it on.’
Reading from a HSE pamphlet in my possession as given to a housemate (a healthcare worker) who recently received their first jab of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, it clearly states ‘We do not know yet if having the vaccine stops you spreading the virus to others, so you must continue to follow public health advice:’
Yet you come on cutting and pasting data and links, with a liberal dosing of words like ‘maybe’ and ‘might’ to state otherwise.
So, who are we to believe?
@David M: believe yourself and nobody else!
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