Modiin teacher infected with virus; 174 students and staff sent to quarantine

A teacher in the central Israeli city of Modiin was diagnosed as sick with the coronavirus, the municipality announced after midnight Wednesday, saying it had identified 94 students and 80 staff members from the high school where she teaches who need to go into quarantine.

The Modiin municipality said it was working to personally contact each of the affected people through the night and Thursday morning to inform them that they would need to self-quarantine.

The ‘Ironi H’ high school where the woman teaches will be closed until Sunday while it is disinfected, officials said and staff members who had not been in contact with the teacher will prepare lessons for the rest of the students in a bid to minimize disruptions to their studies

The teacher has been in self quarantine since Saturday with her family who were not ill. She is in a good condition.

The case is one of several schools to be affected as the Health Ministry on Wednesday announced multiple new cases of Israelis found to be carrying the coronavirus, as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country climbed to 82 total.

The Health Ministry and Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi announced Wednesday that another of those infected was Rabbi Dov Singer, the head of the Makor Haim yeshiva, a religious high school for boys in the West Bank.

The ministry announced details of 12 cases on late Tuesday evening, including a 9-year-old Tel Aviv boy who had been in Madrid with his family, and a career IDF soldier who had been abroad. Both are in good condition, according to authorities.

All students at the Yoseftal Elementary School in the central town of Azor, where the boy studies, have been told to enter quarantine.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Wednesday evening that Israel is limiting public events in enclosed areas to 100 people.

The ban includes synagogue prayer and weddings, the Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman-Tov elaborated, adding that  higher education institutes could hold classes online, with students studying from home, but this was not yet a formal requirement.

He said Israel was not currently considering shuttering schools and that public transportation was operating as usual.

To curb the spread of the virus in the country, all Israelis returning from overseas are required to quarantine at home for 14 days. Non-Israeli nationals will be allowed into the country until Thursday at 8 p.m., but after that they will be barred entry unless they can demonstrate an ability to self-quarantine for two weeks.

The quarantine measures are among the most dramatic to be introduced by any nation in the intensifying battle against the coronavirus. On February 26, Israel had become the first country in the world to advise its citizens against all non-essential overseas travel.