Coronavirus in Israel: Some 2,000 High School Students Quarantined

Some 2,000 high school students and 100 teachers will be placed in home quarantine after one of the students tested positive for the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday. 

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Bibi went gunning for his only real rivalHaaretz Weekly Ep. 66

The ministry ordered the students, attending the Brenner High School in the central city Petah Tikva, to stay in isolation until March 12. Their parents have been informed.

The ministry said that the 15-year-old who tested positive for COVID-19 attended a soccer game in Tel Aviv on Monday night. The Health Ministry has ordered that everyone who entered the stadium through gate eight, thousands of soccer fans, enter isolation immediately.

The ministry said it intends "to step up efforts" to curb the spread of the virus, adding it would convene a press conference in Jerusalem later on Wednesday to discuss the matter.

Meanwhile, twenty-seven fifth-graders from the central city of Kiryat Ono were also placed in quarantine Wednesday, after their homeroom teacher tested positive for coronavirus.

The teacher was diagnosed with COVID-19 after visiting a toy store in the central city of Or Yehuda, "Hapirat Ha'adom," whose owner and one of its workers, a ninth-grader, had been infected.  

Earlier on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said that three more Israelis tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 15.