Nitzan Horowitz
Nitzan HorowitzNoam Revkin Fenton/Flash 90

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) was interviewed on Friday on the Ofira & Berkovic show on Channel 12 and explained the decision to obligate teaching staff to follow the “green pass” regulations.

"I require people in professions involving a large audience to get vaccinated," Horowitz said, adding, "Those who do not get vaccinated should come with a test, and those who are not willing to get vaccinated and tested – let them sit at home."

Horowitz explained that the decision does not only apply to teaching staff, but to all service personnel who are exposed to a wide audience during their work and may be a focus for the spread of the virus.

"My approach from the beginning was against lockdowns and as few severe restrictions as possible. In Israel, everything is open. We did not close anything. Therefore, I made a decision that as little as possible harm should be done to businesses and to culture," he said.

As of Friday, 8,078 Israelis were diagnosed as positive for COVID-19, according to data published by the Ministry of Health. The percentage of people who tested positive stands at 5.7%.

In addition, 1,086 COVID-19 carriers are in hospitals, 689 of them in serious condition.

Since the beginning of the week, there has been a 5% increase in the number of patients in serious condition. At the same time, there has been a further increase in the number of seriously ill patients connected to ventilators, and their number is 149. The number of deaths since the start of the pandemic in Israel is 6,943.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)