The Ministry of Health announced on Friday evening that a tourist from France who visited Israel this week had been diagnosed with coronavirus.

The man arrived in Israel on March 1 at 12:30 p.m. on Transavia flight 3930, and returned on flight 3933 which took off the following afternoon.

As of Friday, the number of Israelis infected with coronavirus stands at 21, after four new cases were reported.

All the new patients are in isolation in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Health.

In addition, the Health Ministry said that an Italian tourist who visited Israel last week was diagnosed with COVID-19 after returning to his country.

Meanwhile, the condition of an Israeli who is hospitalized at the Poriya Hospital in Tiberias with acute pneumonia developed after contracting coronavirus, deteriorated on Friday.

The Israeli is a bus driver who drove tourists from Greece.

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman addressed the stricter instructions for dealing with the Coronavirus with which were issued Wednesday.

“We are in control of the situation and are doing everything that can be done. We don’t know where this virus is coming from, so we are preparing for everything that could happen,” Litzman said in an interview with Kan Bet.

He added: “If everyone had obeyed the Health Ministry’s instructions from the beginning – we wouldn’t have come to anything. The difference between the State of Israel and other countries is that we can tell everyone about the Coronavirus, where it appeared and when.”

In response to criticism from the Foreign Ministry and the public about the Health Ministry’s instructions, Litzman said, “The prime minister actually supported me. He kept saying that it was better to be more stringent than not .”

The minister also referred to the Prime Minister’s statement that this is a worldwide epidemic “perhaps the most dangerous of the last century.”

“He spoke the truth,” Litzman said.