Israel’s Health Ministry informed the Knesset on Thursday afternoon that a Knesset security guard who was tested for COVID was found to be carrying the Omicron variant. The guard who tested positive is the personal guard of UTJ MK Meir Porush, assigned by the Knesset after he was attacked several times by extremists.  The last time the guard was in the Knesset was on Sunday. Following an epidemiological investigation, Porush and 21 security guards and Knesset employees were instructed to enter quarantine. Prior to being instructed to enter quarantine, Porush accompanied US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides on a visit to Bnei Brak earlier on Thursday and entered the homes of HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky and HaGaon HaRav Gershon Edelstein.

Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of Israel’s Health Ministry’s Public Health division, announced at a press conference on Sunday that the UK and Denmark will be added to the list of “red” countries under an Israeli travel ban. Israelis are banned from traveling to red countries and Israelis who return from the UK and other red countries must quarantine for seven days (rather than three days) upon arriving back in Israel even if they’re fully vaccinated. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Sunday that Britain faces a “tidal wave” of infections from the Omicron. On Monday, Johnson confirmed that at least one British COVID patient infected with the Omicron variant has died.

Amid an increase in Omicron cases and a report by Hebrew University researchers saying that Israel has entered its fifth wave, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett convened a meeting of all coalition faction leaders on Motzei Shabbos to discuss implementing additional COVID restrictions. A decision was made to expand the list of red countries, where Israelis are forbidden to travel. According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, the list, which now includes 50 countries, will be reviewed on a daily basis and updated frequently, with more countries to be added to the list in the coming days.

How will the world decide when the pandemic is over? There’s no clear-cut definition for when a pandemic starts and ends, and how much of a threat a global outbreak is posing can vary by country. “It’s somewhat a subjective judgment because it’s not just about the number of cases. It’s about severity and it’s about impact,” says Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief. In January 2020, WHO designated the virus a global health crisis “of international concern.” A couple months later in March, the United Nations health agency described the outbreak as a “pandemic,” reflecting the fact that the virus had spread to nearly every continent and numerous other health officials were saying it could be described as such.

New Zealand’s government believes it has come up with a unique plan to end tobacco smoking — a lifetime ban for those aged 14 or younger. Under a new law the government announced Thursday and plans to pass next year, the minimum age to buy cigarettes would keep rising year after year. That means, in theory at least, 65 years after the law takes effect, shoppers could still buy cigarettes — but only if they could prove they were at least 80 years old. In practice, officials hope smoking will fade away decades before then. Indeed, the plan sets a goal of having fewer than 5% of New Zealanders smoking by 2025. Other parts of the plan include allowing only the sale of tobacco products with very low nicotine levels and slashing the number of stores that can sell them.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday instructed the relevant professionals to “examine options for imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated” during a situational assessment of the coronavirus and the Omicron variant. According to a Channel 12 News report, Bennett asked Deputy Attorney General Raz Nazri to examine the legal feasibility of imposing a lockdown on the unvaccinated as well as a ban on leaving the country but the latter option was rejected as legally problematic. Bennett also requested an examination of the possibility of imposing a vaccine mandate in Israel.

The number of Israelis suspected of being infected with the new Omicron COVID variant rose to 34 on Tuesday, with two Israelis confirmed to be carriers of the variant. Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health division, said on Tuesday that the Omicron variant is alarming, Yisrael Hayom reported. “There’s no chance the vaccine will be as effective against Omicron as it is against Delta,” she said at a Knesset committee meeting. “We must buy time to understand the new variant, whether it is deadly and if it harms children.” “What worries us the most is the rapid spread of the mutation in South Africa. The number of cases went from 200 to 2,000 in just two days. They described how one person infected many others, both vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Amid fears of the new Omicron COVID variant, Israel’s government on Tuesday approved the resumption of the controversial Shin Bet phone tracking program to identify suspected carriers of the variant. The bill still has to be approved by a Knesset vote. During a discussion of the bill in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney-General Raz Nizri said that although the tracking is “a very problematic and complex legal issue,” an exception is being made in order to save lives. Additionally, unlike the prior coronavirus waves in Israel, when Shin Bet tracking was used to track all COVID carriers, it will now only be used to track Omicron carriers.

Cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in countries on opposite sides of the world Sunday and many governments rushed to close their borders even as scientists cautioned that it’s not clear if the new variant is more alarming than other versions of the virus. The variant was identified days ago by researchers in South Africa, and much is still not known about it, including whether it is more contagious, more likely to cause serious illness or more able to evade the protection of vaccines. But many countries rushed to act, reflecting anxiety about anything that could prolong the pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people.

Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health division, spoke about the new Omicron coronavirus variant during a discussion of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Sunday morning on the government’s proposed restrictions to thwart the spread of the variant. Dr. Alroy-Preis explained why the variant is particularly concerning. “The variant apparently first developed in mid-October and was sequenced in South Africa and in Hong Kong – in those who returned from South Africa. It is very concerning because it has a number of very unusual mutations, precisely in the very areas we’re worried about.” “We don’t know yet how it will affect the death rate in general,” she said.