Is Israel Really Free? Four questions about COVID-19

This Passover, the Israelis celebrate their release from COVID-19. But as they leave the lockdowns of solitary confinement, health experts warn that it is still too preliminary for the country to believe it has reached the Promised Land of Health.

This is true even as the Health Ministry calculated Israel’s coronavirus reproduction rate – also known as “R” – to be just 0.55; a rate less than one means the virus is in decline.

“It cannot be determined at this point that the pandemic is behind us and therefore complacency must be avoided,” a report released by the Coronavirus Knowledge & Information Center warned on Monday. “Follow directions carefully and be cautious while continuing to ease economic restrictions.”

Here are four of the remaining coronavirus questions:

1) Could variants cancel Israel’s mass vaccination campaign?

Viruses mutate – it’s part of their biology.

The rate of mutation depends on the number of replicas of the virus. As infection rates decline, so too does the number of new mutations. This is good news for Israel, where only about 1.2% of those screened for the coronavirus test positive.

However, there is still concern that a mutation will occur with a trait that gives it an advantage over the vaccine, making it what is known as ‘vaccine resistant’.

While such a mutation can occur in Israel, it is more likely that a vaccine-resistant variant will be imported into Israel from abroad.

In recent months, strains have been identified that significantly increase the risk of infection – such as the British variant which, before vaccination, accounted for up to 99% of all infections in Israel. Others, like the South African, Brazilian and New York strains, increase the risk of re-infection from people who had already recovered from the virus.

The Brazilian strain of coronavirus has traveled rapidly to neighboring Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, launching new waves of COVID-19 in those countries.

“In light of this, there is an increased risk of inbound flights from South and Central America, as well as from the United States and European countries, where the South African variant is spreading,” warned the center.

The way to prevent these mutations from entering Israel is to secure the country’s borders and follow practices that limit unregulated entry, said Professor Jonathan Gershoni of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at the Tel Aviv University.

“We hope that people should not come from abroad until they have been vaccinated,” he said. Otherwise, he recommended a combination of effective testing and quarantine efforts to limit the risks.

So far, the government has struggled to secure Israel’s airport. The health ministry said nearly two-thirds of all returnees did not self-quarantine.

2) Will we need a reminder?

Health experts have said it is still too early to know how long the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine will last. It is possible that in as little as six months or a year, people who have already completed the normal two-dose regimen will need a third dose.

“We don’t know how robust the protection will be,” Gershoni said, but he noted that “the need for a vaccine booster months or even years after the initial vaccination is quite normal to fortify and improve protection developed from a first vaccination. “

It could also be that the coronavirus is altered so much each year that a new vaccination is necessary, as is the case with the flu; influenza vaccines are adjusted each year to follow what is known as “antigen drift”.

However, most research to date has indicated that SARS-CoV-2 progresses more slowly than the flu or HIV – and that’s a good sign.

Finally, vaccine-resistant variants that could impact vaccine efficacy may require a booster. Messenger RNA vaccines, such as those developed by Pfizer and Moderna, are faster to modify than traditional vaccines, so companies should be able to create new versions to combat individual variants if necessary.

In fact, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson have already started working on boosters to be more effective against variants.

But, Gershoni noted, even though some variants make vaccines less effective, they are unlikely to become totally ineffective, meaning they would still prevent severe cases of the virus.

“From what we can see, the vaccines are doing a very good job,” he said, “and there is no real reason to think that we will need a booster in the months to come. come.”

3) When can we take off our masks?

The Centers for Disease Control ruled earlier this month that fully vaccinated people can assemble – including indoors – without wearing a mask. But Israelis still wear their masks – even outdoors, where air circulation reduces the risk of infection.

Ash said the health ministry will meet soon on the matter and officials are considering allowing Israelis to unmask themselves in open areas.

“I believe we will do this in the near future,” he told Ynet.

Wearing a mask has been scientifically shown to stop the spread of the coronavirus. As it remains unclear whether vaccination stops asymptomatic infection and the resulting transmission, health officials in most countries have not removed the mask requirement to protect the unvaccinated – including children – against the corona.

So far, more than 50% of Israeli citizens have received two injections of the Pfizer vaccine, including 87% of people over the age of 60. Children are less likely to develop severe cases of COVID-19.

“As the burden of the virus is reduced in the country, we can start to consider relaxing some rules and regulations, and one of them could therefore be to relax policies on wearing a mask.” , Gershoni told the Jerusalem Poster.

4) Why have we still not achieved collective immunity?

Israel has not achieved herd immunity despite its astonishing rollout of its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, and it likely never will.

That’s because experts estimate that between 70% and 80% of the population would need to be vaccinated to achieve such a goal, and that would require most of the country’s nearly three million children to receive the vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna are both in the midst of testing on children under 16, but no results are expected until at least the summer.

In addition, not everyone gets the vaccine.

While the majority of older adults have been vaccinated, only 54% of students between the ages of 16 and 19 have, the health ministry showed. Likewise, only 71% of people aged 20 to 29 have been vaccinated.

“There are a number of factors that affect the immunity of the herd,” Gershoni explained, including “the total number of people vaccinated or recovered and how efficiently the virus can spread.”

The British variant was up to 70% more infectious than the original strain, for example, which meant more people had to be protected to gain herd immunity when this variant was in circulation.

Meanwhile, Israel is vaccinated but the Palestinians are not. Neither are Israel’s other neighbors in Jordan, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon.

“Viruses know no borders or borders, and it is obviously in Israel’s best interest to have neighbors who are also protected,” Gershoni said. “Have we achieved collective immunity? Definitely not. Can we achieve collective immunity? And probably not. But that’s only thanks to the numbers. We have already achieved coverage with a focus on protecting people over the age of 60. This means that with or without herd immunity, the risk of developing a serious illness requiring hospitalization or even leading to death is markedly reduced. “