Omicron variant: Israel barricades itself to delay inevitable fifth wave

2021-12-20T21:36:37.717Z

While its own borders are closed to foreigners, the Hebrew state puts several European countries, including France, as well as the United States, on its "red" list of countries at risk. The springs ...

Omicron variant: Israel barricades itself to delay inevitable fifth wave

A Covid-19 screening test carried out in Israel on December 16, 2021. AP - Tsafrir Abayov

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

While its own borders are closed to foreigners, the Hebrew state puts several European countries, including France, as well as the United States, on its "red" list of countries at risk.

Israeli nationals are absolutely prohibited from traveling to these countries, on pain of a fine.

Israeli health authorities know they will not be able to stop the spread of this new variant.

Their objective is to delay this fifth wave, to vaccinate as many people as possible.

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With our correspondent in Jerusalem,

Sami Boukhelifa

To gain time to better fight against the Omicron variant.

This is the strategy that scientists and politicians in Israel opt for.

In consultation, they decided to

close the country's borders

and restrict travel abroad.

We want to minimize the number of imported cases, that is, people infected abroad and who come here,

" said Professor Ran Balicer, who works for Israel's largest health insurance fund

.
In this way, our epidemiological teams will be able to break this chain of contamination.
And thanks to that, we hope to push back the spread of the virus for a week or two.

Vaccinate the entire population before the spread of Omicron

Precious time, which could make all the difference, according to this specialist: “

I want to be clear: we will not be able to stop the
propagation of the Omicron variant
.
We can clearly see the speed at which it is spreading elsewhere.
During the next few weeks, we want to quickly administer third doses and vaccinate children and adults who are not yet vaccinated.

In Israel, since the start of the vaccination campaign, 70% of the population over the age of five has been vaccinated once, and almost half have already received three doses.

The goal of health authorities is to administer a reminder to all eligible people.

Omicron variant: Israel barricades itself to delay inevitable fifth wave

Omicron variant: Israel barricades itself to delay inevitable fifth wave

Vaccinate the entire population before the spread of Omicron

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