Israel has scrapped rules requiring citizens to wear face masks outdoors as it continues to relax Covid measures thanks to the country’s vaccine success.
Although Israelis are no longer to required to wear masks outdoors, they must still put them on when they enter indoor public spaces.
The country has also now fully reopened schools after more than 80% of adults received both of their coronavirus vaccine doses.
The success is a positive sign for the UK, which is close behind in terms of vaccine doses given as Boris Johnson proceeds with his roadmap for lifting lockdown rules.
Israel’s police-enforced wearing of protective masks outdoors was first ordered a year ago before being scrapped on Sunday.
It comes as middle school pupils return to classes, joining kindergarteners, elementary and high school students who are already back in class.
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The country’s education ministry said that schools should continue to encourage personal hygiene, ventilation of classrooms and to maintain social distancing as much as possible during breaks and lessons.
Although face masks are not compulsory outdoors in the UK, experts have warned they may be required indoors for “several years”.
Last month Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at Public Health England, said: “People have got used to those lower level restrictions now, and people can live with them, and the economy can still go on with those less severe restrictions in place.
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“So I think certainly for a few years, at least until other parts of the world are as well vaccinated as we are, and the numbers have come down everywhere, that is when we may be able to go very gradually back to a more normal situation.
“We have to look very carefully before any of these restrictions are lifted.”
The UK is close behind Israel in its vaccination programme success, administering a total of 42 million doses.
