Israeli Police Patrol Coronavirus Home Quarantines

Clad in full-body protective suits, medical masks and latex gloves, Israeli police officers knock at the apartment of a woman who has been in self-quarantine as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus.

Surprised to see them at her door, the woman tells the officers she is feeling good and still has 10 days of isolation to go.

“Everything’s fine, thank G-d,” she said.

Police began joining Health Ministry inspectors on quarantine patrol a few days ago, spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said, after some people caught breaching isolation behaved aggressively towards or attacked the inspectors.

“We are going around, address by address, apartment by apartment to try and find individuals who are meant to be in isolated areas, and are not in isolated areas,” Rosenfeld said. “We’ve arrested two people in the past 48 hours.”

About 70,000 people have been home-quarantined in Israel to minimize the risk of transmitting coronavirus. At least 250 cases have been confirmed in the country and no deaths. The Health Ministry corrected an erroneous earlier report of 344.

Authorities have instructed anyone travelling from abroad or in contact with a coronavirus patient to go into isolation for 14 days.

Wolfson Medical Center in Holon reported a case on Monday of a recalcitrant quarantine patient who had returned from Austria.

“After four days of hospitalization, he violently broke the window and burst through the doors of the quarantine room,” the hospital said in a statement. “After police forces arrived and with the help of the dedicated hospital staff, the patient was returned to his room, and afterward was brought to the quarantine department that was opened at the hospital.”