Israel locks down over virus spike

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, began Friday evening, but Israelis had to forgo the usual large prayer services and family visits. To tamp down on increasing COVID-19 cases, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered a three-week shutdown restricting people to within 1 kilometer of their homes unless on essential business. Anti-lockdown protesters marched through the coastal city of Tel Aviv on Thursday.

How bad is the outbreak? Israel implemented tight restrictions early in the pandemic and only recorded about 100 daily COVID-19 cases during May and June. But the country’s daily new case count now tops 5,000, one of the highest per-capita rates in the world. “It could be that we will have no choice but to make the directives more stringent,” Netanyahu said.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Mindy Belz’s report on Israel’s early battle against the coronavirus.