Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai (Labor) on Monday morning responded to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's recent statements about the spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
"I thought that it had a measure of courage," Shai said in an interview with 103 FM Radio. "It's not easy to stand up and say, 'Friends, we are making a change in our plans.'"
"Our first line of defense has collapsed, and we are now moving to the second line of defense. We did everything in order to stave off the evil.
"I think that we need to make every effort to continue to keep the educational system open - in the end, that is the beating heart of the country," Shai concluded.
Earlier on Monday, Professor Hezy Levy, former Director-General of Israel’s Health Ministry, told Reshet Bet that, "By the end of this wave, most Israelis will either have recovered or have been vaccinated. We see that in South Africa, the infections reached a peak, but now they have begun to drop off."