Israel's Health Minister tests positive, Mossad chief and NSA quarantined

JERUSALEM: Israel's Health Minister Yaakov Litzman has been put into isolation after being tested positive for COVID-19, pushing all the top officials, including Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat, at the forefront of fight against the deadly virus into self-quarantine.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier gone into self isolation after a close aide was found to have contracted the Virus, but he has so far tested negative.

Litzman and his wife, who also has contracted the virus, are in isolation, feeling well and are being treated, the health ministry said in a statement, adding that it will request all those who came in contact with the minister in the past two weeks to also do the same.

The team of advisers, assistants and secretarial staff in the minister's office will continue to work from home and will maintain constant telephone communication as needed with the minister, who is continuing to fully manage this event from his home, the ministry said.

He has "light Coronavirus symptoms after contracting the disease from an as yet unidentified source", a Health Ministry official told Channel 12 news.

His condition at this time is mild. He is not asymptomatic, there are some symptoms, but no more than that, Dr Itamar Grotto, deputy director-general of the ministry, told the Channel.

Litzman will be "able to keep working while sick", Grotto said.

The ministry is investigating from whom Litzman contracted the disease and is informing people who have been in contact with the minister to go into quarantine, including the director-general of the health ministry, Moshe Bar Siman-tov, the head of Mossad and a number of other senior officials, he stressed. Ha'aretz Online in its regular update said that both, Mossad Chief Cohen and NSA Shabbat, will be quarantined.