TEL AVIV – An employee at the Prime Minister’s Office has been confirmed with coronavirus, potentially compelling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go into self-quarantine for the third time in as many months.
The development comes amid an uptick in cases that began last week with 115 new infections in a 24-hour period – the highest in a month.
The infected PMO worker, a technical staffer, was in a room with Netanyahu, Israeli media reported.
“A worker at the office tested positive for coronavirus,” the statement from Netanyahu’s office said. “At the moment, an epidemiological investigation is being conducted, at the end of which appropriate guidelines will be given to those who came in contact with him.”
Netanyahu entered self-quarantine on two occasions over the past three months, once in March after an advisor was diagnosed with the virus, and again in April when then-health minister Yaakov Litzman contracted it.
The PMO worker was infected by a family member linked to a student at the Gymnasia Rehavia high school in Jerusalem, where more than 130 students and staff members were confirmed to be coronavirus carriers.
Thousands of students and their families went into quarantine as 21 schools around the country racked up cases. The Health Ministry warned Sunday that it might order the shuttering of all high schools if outbreaks continue.
According to the first Israeli antibody study, between two and three percent of the population has contracted the virus. That figure, representing up to 270,000 Israelis, is at least 10 times higher than the number of confirmed cases.
Researchers conducted serological tests on blood samples of 1,700 Israelis.
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