“It is impossible to allay fears about the Omicron variant,” Health ministry director general Professor Nachman Ash said on the radio on Sunday. Kan Reshet Bet.
The variant “is still spreading in South Africa and we do not know its resistance to the vaccine,” he explained.
Seven cases of the Omicron variant have so far been confirmed in Israel, while 27 other cases are suspected to be from this variant.
The head of the fight against the coronavirus also warned against premature contentment.
“Seven cases of the Omicron strain have been diagnosed in Israel – three of them are vaccinated and four are not,” Prof. Salman Zarka told military radio.
“It is impossible to deduce information from these statistics,” he said.
The R reproduction number of the virus in Israel has also risen to the threshold value of 1, according to data from the Ministry of Health released on Sunday.
This figure represents the average number of secondary cases caused by a single infected person. When its absolute value is greater than 1, the pandemic spreads.
According to ministry data, the contamination rate currently stands at 0.63%, 241 new people were diagnosed on Sunday.
152 patients are hospitalized, 110 of them in serious condition, 8,204 people have so far died of the disease.
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