Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked was found positive for COVID-19 in an antigen test she took on Saturday night, just prior to entering the Channel 12 News studio for an interview.
The Minister is feeling well and will perform an institutional test in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Health.
Several MKs have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks, including Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, who tested positive this past Wednesday.
Last weekend, MK David Bitan, (Likud) tested positive for COVID-19, marking the second time he has contracted the virus. He first contracted the virus in December of 2020 and was hospitalized in serious condition for several weeks.
In mid-January, Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman tested positive for COVID-19, as did MK Alex Kushnir of Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party.
MK Moshe Tur-Paz (Yesh Atid) was also diagnosed with the virus around the same time.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry on Saturday night reported that 37,977 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed Friday, for a total of 370,798 active cases countrywide.
Of those, 2,805 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, among them 1,213 whose condition is serious.
Among the 370 whose condition is critical are 270 coronavirus-positive patients who are intubated, and 16 who are on ECMO (heart and lung) machines.
Reinfection with COVID-19 is becoming more common, with 6.53% of all confirmed recovered individuals testing positive at least one additional time.
The Health Ministry also said that 23 coronavirus-positive patients died on Friday, and 14 died so far on Saturday. The new deaths bring this week's total to 295, and the total deaths since the start of the pandemic to 9,135.