Health Ministry Director General Professor Nachman Ash on Wednesday morning spoke at a conference of pediatricians, noting that after Israel vaccinates school-age children, the next challenge facing the country is that of identifying variants and ensuring that Israel does not lose the gains it has made by succumbing to a vaccine-resistant strain of the virus. "The next challenge is that of identifying a dangerous variant somewhere in the world - either that is vaccine-resistant or that causes more severe illness," Prof. Ash said, according to Israel Hayom . "When we identify one like this, and that's also not simple at an early stage, we need to see what kinds of protection we can create." He added: "Here there are dilemmas regarding closing Ben Gurion International Airport - whether to certain countries or in general." Related articles: US troops may have contracted COVID months before outbreak German intelligence had evidence COVID leaked from Wuhan lab This is the source of COVID-19 COVID-19 caused by leak from Chinese lab Regarding the Health Ministry's recent decision to allow those returning from abroad to undergo a rapid test within 24 hours of takeoff, instead of a regular PCR within 72 hours, Prof. Ash said, "We're not compromising on the test. We always said that an antigen test within 24 hours is equal in value to a PCR test within 24 hours. It's hard to find PCR testing abroad and it's very expensive. I think this is a very intelligent decision, and that it makes things easier." According to Israel Hayom , hundreds of thousands of pediatric COVID-19 doses are expected to arrive in Israel on Wednesday evening, and the rollout is expected to begin next week.