Skies between SA and Israel could open soon, says Israel’s COVID-19 chief

South African Jews and their relatives in Israel are battling yet another travel ban implemented by Israel at the beginning of May, which forbids travel to South Africa and seven other countries. Yet Tomer Lotan, the executive director and policy chief at the Government of Israel National Coronavirus TaskForce, told the SA Jewish Report it might shift soon.

“I think it will change pretty soon. The policy is based on the idea of opening as much as we can inside Israel, but being very strict with our borders. We call it the ‘inverse watermelon’ – the inside is green and the outside is red. It sounds much better in Hebrew!

“We went through two to three months of relief in daily activity and opening our economy,” he says. “This was mainly through the ‘green pass’, a project that I was privileged to lead [allowing those who are vaccinated access to daily life, sport, and cultural events]. There were about six to seven phases of relief to get our economic activity as close as we could to daily routine.

“But the other side of the equation has been to keep our borders as strict as possible. It’s a challenging balance. We’ve been more conservative about our borders than before because we want to maintain the achievements of our vaccination project. We don’t want to risk it with a ‘variant scenario’ [a COVID-19 variant entering the country.]”

He says an Israeli High Court decision two months ago ruled that “we cannot block Israeli citizens from travelling back to Israel. This means we had only one option left: to have a differentiated approach to different countries. This is why we created these criteria, focused on countries that are more dangerous for Israel because of the presence of variants of concern. We also looked at the traffic between these countries and Israel.”

In the case of South Africa he says, “the South African COVID-19 variant is still a concern according to our Ministry of Health. However, I must say, over the past week or two, we have seen more evidence that the South African variant may be less dangerous than we originally thought. So I’m more optimistic that in the short term, Israel will update its knowledge on the South African variant. We hope that the evidence will give us confidence that it won’t affect those who are vaccinated, and then the policy [on travel between South Africa and Israel] might change. But we’ve been very conservative because no one wants to make the mistake of ‘reading the map’ incorrectly.”

Lotan says South Africa’s recent low COVID-19 numbers don’t have a big impact on Israel’s assessment of its travel ban. Rather, the traffic between the two countries and strong family ties between people has more of an impact.

“But we want to emphasise that the health ministry and Israeli government are very aware of the need to reconnect communities and families. We hope to make sure that over the coming weeks and into the summer, there is more traffic between South Africa, Israel, and other countries, not only for the Israeli economy, but also because of the very important ties to these Jewish communities. We are making an effort and it’s ‘on our table’. We are putting a lot of effort into updating policies.”

So is Israel’s fight with the pandemic coming to an end? “Most Israelis feel that ‘corona is over’. They act like it’s over, and there is much sense in that as we are really close to normal routine,” he says. “And our numbers are dramatically, fantastically low. The only question mark is the fact that the world is still suffering terribly from COVID-19. So it’s still premature to say that it’s over.”

He says the Israeli government will soon “pilot groups of tourists to start tourism again in Israel. That’s the next step. We’ve done things gradually, in a cautious way. We aren’t running forward [without thinking things through].”

Regarding sectors of Israeli society that may have been resistant to vaccines, Lotan says “the Haredim [ultra-Orthodox] do vaccinate. They are at least 60% vaccinated, which is high compared to the rest of the world.” He points out that they haven’t experienced an increase in COVID-19 numbers after the large gathering at Mount Meron for Lag B’Omer.

“Arab Israeli citizens also have very high vaccination numbers. It took a while to increase numbers – it started slowly, but after we adjusted our messaging and created greater accessibility in Arab villages, there has been increased compliance.” These efforts have extended from East Jerusalem to Bedouin families in the Negev. Lotan says Israel has also vaccinated 200 000 Palestinian workers that come in and out of Israel. Although it’s in Israel’s interest that all Palestinians are vaccinated, this responsibility falls to the Palestinian Authority.

Regarding the large numbers gathered at Mount Meron, Lotan says, “for so many years, the event has been unmanaged. It’s like a ‘no man’s land’. We concluded COVID-19 restrictions for Meron based on the green pass –allowing only those who are vaccinated to attend, restricting numbers, and so on. The plan was agreed with the relevant ministries and the police.

“But then it was disputed at operational level. Who would enforce it? Who would check the green passes? And then the formal restrictions weren’t voted in by the government. It was a very good plan, but no one signed it. So the event was unmanaged.”

He says this failure is a symbol of “the failures of the Israeli system. It’s not just political, it’s about the weakness of authorities. So the miracle [of Lag B’Omer] didn’t happen this year.”