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Israel, where vaccination of children and adolescents aged 12 to 15 has been started, starting next week, masks will no longer be required indoors except in schools. Britain, where more than half of its adults have been vaccinated, has been strained by a mutant virus from India.
Reporter Lee Hyun-jung reports.
<Reporter> The
hospital is crowded with teenagers who have come to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
In Israel on the 6th local time, vaccination began for children and adolescents aged 12 to 15 years.
[Sofia Gorom/Vaccinated Youth: It's not scary. I think it's 100% safe.]
Israel, which declared the world's first collective immunity by securing the vaccine early, plans to lift the mandatory indoor mask wearing guidelines from the 15th.
Israel had more than 10,000 new confirmed cases per day five months ago, but recently, more than 55% of the total population completed the second dose, so the number of new cases per day has dropped to less than 20.
However, schools where children and adolescents under the age of 16 live have decided to keep wearing indoor masks for the time being, and the guidelines will be lifted depending on the progress of vaccination.
In the UK, the rapid spread of the mutant virus from India is disrupting quarantine plans.
British Health Minister Matt Hancock said in an interview with the BBC that the mutant virus from India was found to be 40% more contagious than the existing virus. encouraged that
The UK was the first country in the world to vaccinate, and more than half of the adult population has completed a second dose.
It was planned to remove the quarantine-related restrictions on the 21st, but the number of new infections, which fell to the late 1,000s, is increasing again to the 5,000s.