Police minister to quarantine after top border cop tests positive for virus

Public Security Minister Amir Ohana announces he will enter quarantine after the commander of the Border Police tested positive for the coronavirus.

Ohana says though a pair of interactions he had with Yaakov Shabtai didn’t meet the Health Ministry standards requiring a person who was in contact with a COVID-19 carrier to quarantine, he is deciding to self-isolate out of caution.

“[People] shouldn’t take risks, especially considering the nature of my meetings,” Ohana wrote on Facebook, noting he was supposed to take part in tomorrow’s weekly cabinet meeting.

Ohana, whose ministry oversees police, says he took a coronavirus test that came back negative.

His announcement came as the Health Ministry said President Reuven Rivlin, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, who were all at a ceremony Shabtai attended this week, don’t have to quarantine.

In the Facebook post, Ohana also addresses the police’s stepped up enforcement of social distancing rules meant to curb the spread of the virus.

“Right now I finished a conference call with the heads of police and it was agreed that starting tomorrow, thousands of officers will only deal with enforcing the coronavirus [rules], all over the country, in all places,” he says.