Health Ministry: American Tourist Left Coronavirus Trail Throughout Yerushalayim

Israel’s latest coronavirus headache comes in the form of an American tourist who on Wednesday night was diagnosed as having contracted the illness – and is now back in New York, after having visited Israel last month. The Health Ministry on Thursday published a list of all the places the tourist visited when she was in Israel between February 22-28.

The tourist arrived in Israel on February 22 on flight LY008 from Kennedy Airport, which landed in Israel at about 10:50 p.m. She left Israel on flight LY027, which departed on February 29 at 6:00 a.m. Among the places she visited or traveled in Israel: Cafe Rimon on the Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian walkway on February 23, between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m.; a number 74 Egged bus traveling on King George Street on February 24, at 3:00 p.m.; later that afternoon, between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. she was at Osher Ad in the Hadar Mall at Pierre Koenig; another visit to  Cafe Rimon on February 24 between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.; a number of stores in the Talpiot Mall on February 25 between 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. On February 26, she was at Mizrahi Tefahot Mortgage Bank located at 9 Queen Heleni Street in Yerushalayim between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. She was at Fox Home, Osher Ad and Tzomet Sfarim stores in Yerushalayim from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. On February 27, at 10:00 am, she took Egged bus line 74 from Derech Chevron to Talpiot; between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. she was at Kafit at 36 Emek Refaim Street. At 7:30 p.m., she boarded Egged bus line 74 from Derech Chevron to the Central Station in Yerushalayim, and she boarded the Yerushalayim-Ben Gurion rail line, which she boarded at 8:30 p.m.

Anyone who was present at those venues during those periods is required to self-quarantine for two weeks, the Health Ministry said Thursday. The ministry is working to track down individuals who may have been in contact with the tourist.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman said that his ministry was considering what action to take against the Maccabee Tel Aviv sports team for violating rules on self-quarantine. The team recently played in Spain, one of the countries added this week to the list from which visitors must self-quarantine. Instead, the team played on Wednesday night at a game in Tel Aviv. “The ministry is considering taking action against the team,” Rabbi Litzman told Army Radio. “We need to protect the public from this disease.”