Health Minister: Omicron “Under Control”

As Israel rushed to impose emergency measures in response to the Omicron variant, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said on Sunday that it’s “under control.”

“We assumed a new variant would show up. Thanks to our defensive and enforcement measures, we located this variant quickly. We were among the first to find and isolate it. The matter is under control, there’s no need for fear or panic,” he said, according to The Times of Israel.

At the same time, he defended government approval of Shin Bet tracking of carriers of the variant, while expressing misgivings.

“I’ve got a big problem with the use of tracking. I prefer that the Shin Bet deal with security matters and not civilian ones,” he said, but rationalizing it as “very limited, temporary and has a lot of oversight.”