Top doctor urged to quit for allegedly letting billionaire skip quarantine

The deputy director-general of the Health Ministry came under fire Wednesday after a television report said he granted an Israeli-Cypriot billionaire’s request to be exempt from having to quarantine upon arriving in Israel.

According to Channel 12 news, Teddy Sagi first asked outgoing director-general Moshe Bar Siman-Tov to allow him to enter the country without having to self-quarantine for 14 days as all arrivals are required to do, but was turned down.

Sagi then turned to Itamar Grotto, Bar Siman-Tov’s deputy, who the network said approved the request.

The businessman, who owns the gambling company Playtech, then reportedly attended a rooftop party in Tel Aviv hosted by a real estate developer that allegedly violated the Health Ministry’s guidelines on large gatherings.

Sagi said he arrived in Israel legally and adhered to the instructions he was given, but the network said the Health Ministry was weighing filing a police complaint against him for violating quarantine.

There was no immediate response from Grotto.

Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said he’d instructed Bar Siman-Tov to probe the matter.

“We’re calling on the entire public to observe the guidelines. This is a grave error in judgement that seriously harms public trust. I won’t act with forgiveness in such cases,” Edelstein wrote on Twitter.

The Ynet news site said Bar Siman-Tov had sent a “harsh” letter to Grotto demanding clarifications and urging him to resign if the accusations are true.

“An exemption from quarantine, contrary to regulation, creates serious harm to the public’s faith in us, the professional health authorities and the government,” he wrote according to Ynet, which said it had a copy of the letter.

Bar Siman-Tov demanded to know if an exemption was given, and if so, what the justification was. He also asked if similar, unauthorized exemptions had been made.

“I hope there is a professionally satisfactory explanation for this and that the reports will prove to be false, however, if they are true then you need to immediately draw the appropriate conclusions,” he wrote.

The Movement for Quality Government, a good governance group, also called for Grotto to immediately step down.

“Beyond being a grave moral failure, this is a public health risk by the person directly in charge of the matter,” it said in a statement.

Grotto, an epidemiologist, has served as deputy director-general of the Health Ministry since 2017. He is the top physician in the public health system, as Bar Siman-Tov, an economist, has no medical background and is the first non-doctor to serve as director-general of the Health Ministry.

In recent days Israel has put the breaks on lifting some restrictions amid a resurgence of infections.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday said 175 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours.

The number of active cases has surged to 2,869, after having dipped below 2,000 last month. The number of cases diagnosed in the first 10 days of June was 1,253, surpassing those in the entire month of May, which reported 1,186 cases.

This would not be the first case of senior officials flouting coroanvirus restrictions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin were accused of  apparently flouting the strict curfew imposed on the country Passover to prevent people hosting family gatherings and spreading the coronavirus. Rivlin later apologized.

Meanwhile former Health Minister Yaacov Litzman, who caught the virus, was accused of attending prayer services after the were banned.