Israel: 31 schools closed, 10,000 students and staff quarantined over coronavirus fears

Overall, 206 people in Israel’s education facilities contracted COVID-19, including 164 students and 42 staff

In Israel, 31 schools were closed and some 10,000 students and staff were quarantined as of Tuesday as the COVID-19 coronavirus hit the country’s educational institutions.

In Beersheba, a city in Israel’s south, about 2,000 students and 200 teachers were sent home for preventive quarantine after a student tested possible in the city’s largest school.

The Health Ministry is now conducting an epidemiological probe into the situation to establish who may have been exposed to the patient, and testing is underway for 48 students and four staffers known to have been in contact with the student, Israel Hayom reports.

The instance was just one of 13 new schools shuttered since Monday. Out of those, nine are in Jerusalem and five are in the south, as reported by the Walla newspaper.

According to the official data, a total of 206 people have been infected in Israeli schools so far, including 164 students and 42 teachers.

On Monday, the country’s Health Ministry confirmed 98 new coronavirus infections in the country — a figure that came as part of a larger upwards pattern emerging over the past few days.

As Israel eased the restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the disease, new infections started to climb up, prompting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge Israelis to keep wearing face masks and observe other guidelines.