From [NN] Despite the fact that Israel has implemented some of the most draconian COVID-19 pandemic measures in the world, the country is now number one in the world in new cases, according to local reports.

According to the Times of Israel, a leading health expert in the country said that 0.6 percent of the population was testing positive daily for the virus — most likely the latest variant, omicron, which is highly contagious but also very mild.

Prof. Eran Segal of The Weizmann Institute said at that rate, Israel currently leads the world in per capita infection rates, even though the population is required to get the latest version of vaccines available and despite heavy quarantine and lockdown regimes.

However, Segal tried to excuse the high infection rate:

But Segal noted it was likely that Israel was not truly the country with the highest infection rate. Rather, he attributed the figures to Israel being a leading country in the number of tests performed each day, relative to its population size.

Israel is followed in the highest daily cases worldwide ranking by Mongolia, Peru, Canada and Georgia.

The fact is, either you’re the number one country, per capita, in daily infections — or you’re not. And right now, Israel is No. 1, period, no matter how you look at the data.

But instead of realizing that this novel coronavirus is not the world-ender that the world has been propagandized to believe, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is quadrupling down on idiot policies that have not worked yet and are never going to work (because viruses virus — that’s what they do and nothing humans do will stop them from spreading).

The PM “announced Thursday that mandatory quarantine for schoolchildren who were exposed to coronavirus carriers would be scrapped entirely,” the Times of Israel reported. “According to the plan, starting next Thursday, children up to the age of 18 will no longer need to isolate after being exposed.

“Instead, all students — both vaccinated and unvaccinated — will need to conduct two antigen tests a week — on Sundays and Wednesdays — and present negative results when entering educational institutions,” the outlet continued. “Children who test positive for COVID-19 will still need to isolate until testing negative.”

Bennett said that the government will begin distributing “millions” of test kits so that testing can be done at home, an endeavor that is costing tens of millions of dollars to carry out.

Bennett’s order comes as 146,000 school-aged children were already in quarantine due to testing positive for the virus, while another 142,000 were forced into quarantine because they had been ‘exposed’ to the virus (which means nothing considering the virus is literally everywhere).

“Wherever we can make it easier for the public, we will. We are taking Omicron seriously, but also looking at the bigger picture,” Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said.

Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton called Bennett’s order “a brave decision,” while noting further that “it would have been easier to close the education system, but our duty is to save every boy and girl” from the damage of repeated quarantines — even while ordering them into repeated quarantines.