Despite Israel being hailed for its impressive vaccination campaign, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, who heads the ministry's Public Health Services department, warned on Wednesday of "worrying preliminary research on the efficacy of the vaccine" on people who contracted a mutated strain of the coronavirus identified in South Africa.
"The South African mutation is more troubling because it can cause serious illness among young people," she noted.
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At a virtual meeting of the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, Wednesday, Alroy-Preis said, "We are dealing with mutations that could break out quickly like the British one and those that could threaten the efficacy of the vaccine." She said it was therefore important the government ensure people returning from overseas go into quarantine in quarantine hotels or quarantine at home, with increased enforcement. "Within this framework, we are interested in tests being carried out upon entering quarantine and on the ninth day [of quarantine], she said.
According to Alroy-Preis, "3% of returnees have a positive test on the day they enter Israel, and the rest will be positive as time goes by." She said the infection rate among those returning to Israel has gone from around 3% to 5.3% in the past two weeks as a result of more people being tested upon entering the country.
Israel confirmed 7,830 new cases of the coronavirus, Wednesday. According to the Health Ministry, 129,866 people were tested for COVID-19, for an infection rate of 6.2%, the lowest it has been over the past four days.
Israel currently has 64,370 active cases of the virus, 905 of them serious. There are 219 people on ventilators. So far, 3,527 people have died.
Around 1,593,000 Israelis, or 17.5% of the country's population, have received the first dose of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine. Around 91,300 were inoculated on Wednesday, just one day before new restrictions that will tighten a third national lockdown imposed on Dec. 27 were set to take effect Thursday night. The tightened lockdown will be in force for 14 days.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the curbs as Israel's final push to stop a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases while it presses ahead with a rapid vaccination drive, hoping to emerge from the crisis within weeks.
