Israel on Tuesday began a week-long campaign of night curfews and school closures in dozens of towns and neighbourhoods with high coronavirus counts, hoping to stem a spike in cases as its public-health chiefs were quarantined for exposure.
Most of the 40 zones subject to the partial lockdowns are identified with Israeli Arabs or ultra-Orthodox Jews, minorities where crowding has helped spread the pandemic.
Israel, with a population of 9 million, has recorded 135 288 cases of the novel coronavirus and 1 031 deaths.
The discovery that a worker at a Health Ministry project for combating the virus had contracted it prompted senior staff who had been exposed to him to self-isolate as a precaution.
These included the Health Minister, Deputy Health Minister, the ministry’s director-general, chief of staff and legal counsel, as well as two advisers and Israel’s coronavirus commissioner, the ministry said.
Some government officials have called for a nationwide lockdown if the partial measures put into force on Tuesday fail. That could disrupt celebrations of the Jewish high holy days,which run from September 18 to October 10.