Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has decided to launch a third antigen test operation that will completely eliminate the need for quarantine for students in the education system who have not tested positive for COVID-19, Channel 12 News reported on Friday.
According to the outline, each family will receive 20 tests per student under the age of 12 free of charge - and will perform the tests in accordance with the color of their city in the “traffic light plan”.
30 million tests are already making their way to Israel, and are likely to arrive on October 10. As such, the outline is expected to be launched no later than mid-October.
Students will be tested at least once a week, depending on the color of their city in the traffic light plan, and thus will not be required to quarantine as long as they are not found to be positive for COVID-19.
The outline will work as follows, according to Channel 12 News:
• In green cities: Each student will be tested once a week to make sure the city is clean. Those who test positive will enter isolation, those who test negative will not be required to do so - even if they have been in contact with a verified carrier.
• In red cities: Students will perform tests twice a week on set days, and here too - only verified cases will enter isolation.
• In a class where someone has tested positive: The students will perform tests day after day for a week, and only verified cases will enter isolation.
The operation is based on the fact that there was a good response from parents to the previous antigen testing operation. In addition, the entire education system has about 500 verified cases, which constitute only 0.1% of all students in Israel.
(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.)