Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of Israel's public health services, on Monday morning criticized the Education Ministry, demanding during a Knesset discussion that the Education Ministry provide information on children who test positive for COVID-19.
During a Health Committee meeting, Education Ministry Director General Dalit Stauber said that 60,000 students had been found to be positive for COVID-19.
Dr. Alroy-Preis said, "What is more disturbing is that the Israeli government made a decision that a child has coronavirus and did not conduct the tests, [and] he has to quarantine. But we have no way of doing that, because there is no real supervision of this plan."
"Only one-third of students are tested, and we also don't know who the infected students are. The Education Ministry does not report and the Health Ministry has no ability to enforce quarantine for those who are not testing. We don't know who needs to be in quarantine, and we request to receive that information."
According to the Education Ministry, on Sunday morning 619,683 reports from parents were received, representing 30.7% of the students who are required to undergo twice-weekly home antigen tests. This number does not include handwritten reports received via printed forms.
Of the 619,683 reports, 21,394 students were reported as having tested positive (3.5%). These students join the 41,264 who were found positive in last week's home antigen tests.
Since the new plan went into effect on January 27, 62,658 students have tested positive on home antigen tests.