Prof. Itamar Grotto, the Deputy Director-General of Israel’s Health Ministry stated on Wednesday that the wide-scale spread of the coronavirus in Israel is inevitable after a vice-principal of an elementary school and a 9th-grade student were diagnosed with the virus, requiring over 1,000 students to be put into quarantine.

Israel’s Health Ministry announced on Tuesday night that three more Israelis were diagnosed with the coronavirus, raising the total number of cases in Israel to 15.

One of the three is a 9th-grade student at Brenner High School in Givat Brenner, a kibbutz in central Israel near Rechovot, who works at the Red Pirate toy store in Or Yehuda where the first Israeli who was diagnosed with the virus upon his return from Italy also works. There are now a total of three employees of the store who have been diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus.

Classes at the student’s school were canceled on Wednesday and the school has instructed that all 1,150 students self-quarantine. Also, the student attended a soccer game at the Bloomfield Stadium on February 24, the Tel Aviv Derby between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv. The Health Ministry has instructed the over 5,000 soccer fans that sat at Gate 8 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the game to self-quarantine.

Another diagnosed Israeli is a vice-principal and 5th-grade teacher in an elementary school in Kiryat Ono, a city near Tel Aviv, who had been a customer at the Red Pirate store. Parents of the 27 fifth-grade students were instructed to place their children in quarantine.

The third Israeli had returned from a trip to Italy on February 29 and was in self-quarantine at home. The Health Ministry instructed all Israeli residents aboard EasyJet flight EJU3342 that flew from Italy to Israel, landing on Saturday afternoon, to self-quarantine immediately and report to the ministry by phone or online.

Also, the man had voted at the “isolation” voting station in Tel Aviv on Klausner Street before displaying symptoms and the Health Ministry instructed Israelis who had voted at the same station to extend their quarantine by another 14 days from Election Day.

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The ministry said that the patients, who have only mild symptoms, have all been transferred to isolation.

Roni Bargill, an Israeli resident of Migdal HaEmek who identified himself on social media as having identified the coronavirus upon returning from Milan, was released from the hospital on Tuesday after two tests for COVID-19 showed negative results.

Also, over 5,000 Israelis are currently in self-quarantine due to having had contact with someone with the virus or having returned from a country deemed high-risk, including an employee of the Bnei Brak municipality who was at the shuk in Ashdod at the same time as someone who was subsequently diagnosed with the virus.

The Health Ministry ordered Israel’s hospitals this week to prepare departments to treat patients with the coronavirus.

Rambam Hospital in Haifa has already been preparing a coronavirus department and completed their preparations on Tuesday. The department, which can house 30 patients is on its own floor with a separate entrance and elevator and even has an air filter to pump the air in the department before it exits the building. Two rooms in the ward are designed for pediatric patients and another room is equipped for patients with respiratory complications.

The staff, consisting of several doctors and 30 nurses, was trained by Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer and will work only in that department.

A new remote monitoring system, developed by the Israeli start-up Biobeat to be used in the department for the first time, will utilize smart monitoring stickers that will be adhered to the patients and enable continuous monitoring of temperature, breathing and other functions.

Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva has also prepared a department to treat patients with the coronavirus.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)