NIS 300-250 million - this is the price tag that the finance people attach to the import of tens of millions of tests to Israel, Israel Today has learned.
According to the outline presented by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which is supposed to put an end to isolation in kindergartens and schools, speed tests will be distributed to 2.5 million school and kindergarten students in Israel, who will have to be tested twice a week.
In addition, earlier this week a free trial distribution campaign was announced in nursing homes and among populations treated by welfare services.
The number of tests that the state intends to distribute in the near future is about 30 million tests.
Prime Minister Bennett, Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO
Where will the money come from?
It seems that the matter has already been resolved, and the increase comes from the remnants of the Ministry of Health's budget for 2021 and reserves from the Ministry of Finance.
It should be noted that in the original distribution of the amount, it was planned that NIS 100 million would be allocated for the purchase of antigen tests, and in practice this amount has tripled.
Accountant General in the Treasury: "Closures do not help so much"
Meanwhile, the Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance, Yahli Rotenberg, backs the government's policy of keeping the economy open in the current wave despite the dramatic increase in morbidity, rather than imposing restrictions on the economy.
At the Eilat conference on industry and high-tech, which took place this weekend, Rotenberg said: "We understand that closures do not help much and only harm the economy and business in a very significant way, and recovery from them is difficult, so we should avoid imposing them as much as possible."
Yahli Rotenberg, Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance.
"Closures are harmful to the economy", Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The director of the research division, Prof. Michel Strawczynski, added at the same conference that "the omicron wave increases the amount of isolation and high economic price in December and January. However, in terms of the starting point where the economy is, The fifth wave. "
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