1 of 7 | Travelers walk in the Departure Hall of Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv on Wednesday. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI |
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Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Travelers from the United States and several other countries who arrive in Israel starting Wednesday are bound by new requirements to quarantine for a full week, regardless of their COVID-19 vaccination status.
The new mandate took effect at midnight on Tuesday and affects travelers from almost two dozen nations, including the United States, France, Italy, Germany and Greece.
The restriction is a measure to tamp down on coronavirus transmission from countries where cases are surging, largely due to mutated strains like the Delta variant.
Israeli officials recently put those countries under a severe travel warning. The United States this week also placed Israel under a similar warning.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention placed Israel in the Level 4 classification, along with France, Aruba, Eswatini, French Polynesia, Iceland and Thailand.
"Avoid travel to Israel," the CDC notice states. "If you must travel to Israel, make sure you are fully vaccinated before travel.
"Because of the current situation in Israel, even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk forgetting and spreading COVID-19 variants."
There were more than 6,000 new cases in Israel on Monday, according to health officials. The surge is mostly being fueled by the contagious Delta variant. The daily figure was Israel's highest since February.
For the past two days, new cases in the United States have topped 100,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.