The press conference held by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday afternoon took place against an overwhelming feeling among Israelis that the government had lost control of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. There is no way of knowing how many people have been infected each day because the testing network simply cannot keep up. Nevertheless, experts estimate that about 100,000 people were tested in the last day alone.

In his press conference, Bennett informed the public about something it already knew: Israel is being overwhelmed by a new wave of infection, unlike anything ever seen before. Millions are expected to be infected with the omicron variant in the next few weeks. He promised economic assistance to be people who were affected, and emphasized that unlike the previous government, he would not enforce a closure.

Every so often Bennett attacked his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, going so far as to accuse the former prime minister of sowing chaos. “Nothing that Netanyahu does will surprise me. I saw a video of him gnawing away at public trust in the antigen test, even though the rest of the world uses it. What he is doing is not only irresponsible but unpatriotic. He has interfered with public trust,” Bennett said of the opposition leader. He was reacting to a video clip in which Netanyahu questioned the reliability of the virus test.

Bennett stood alone at the podium during the press conference, without any of the relevant ministers — Health, Finance, or Education. As a prime minister with no real political power or public support, he is having a hard time controlling his ministers, as evidenced by his education minister’s blocking of a vaccination campaign in schools. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who came down with the coronavirus on Jan. 9, kept a safe distance from any government handling of the pandemic long before he got ill.