From the Liveblog of
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Health Ministry official: Litzman has only light coronavirus symptoms
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleHealth Minister Yaakov Litzman has light coronavirus symptoms after contracting the disease from an as yet unidentified source, a Health Ministry official says.
“His condition at this time is mild. He is not asymptomatic, there are some symptoms, but no more than that,” Dr. Itamar Grotto, deputy director-general of the ministry, says in an interview on Channel 12.
He says Litzman will be able to keep working while sick.
Grotto says the ministry is investigating from whom Litzman contracted the disease and is informing people who have been in contact with the minister to go into quarantine, including the director-general of the Health Ministry, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov; the head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen; and a number of other senior officials.
Grotto says he will not have to go into quarantine as all his recent meetings with Litzman have been held over the phone or through video conferences.
Asked if Litzman could have contracted the disease from another senior government official, Grotto says this is possible, but that he also could have become infected from someone within his ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem.
“There’s a high rate of the illness in the Haredi community, so it’s reasonable to think that it happened there,” he says.
The Times of Israel Community.