Is Israel really free this Passover? Four COVID-19 questions

• Published date: 30 March 2021
• Author: MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
• Date: 30 March 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

That is true even as the Health Ministry calculated Israel's coronavirus reproduction rate – also known as the "R" – to only 0.55; a rate under one means the virus is on the decline.

"It cannot be determined at this point that the pandemic is behind us and therefore complacency should be avoided," a report published by the Coronavirus Knowledge & Information Center warned on Monday. "Carefully keep the guidelines and be cautious while continuing to ease economic restrictions."

These are four of the coronavirus questions that remain:

1) Could variants undo Israel's mass vaccination campaign?

Viruses mutate – this is part of their biology.

The rate of mutation is dependent on the number of times the virus replicates. When infection rates decrease, so do the number of new mutations. That is good news for Israel, where only around 1.2% of people screened for coronavirus are testing positive.

However, there is still a concern that there may be a mutation that occurs with a trait that gives it an advantage over the vaccine, rendering it what is called "vaccine resistant."

While such a mutation could occur in Israel, it is more likely that a vaccine-resistant variant would be imported to Israel from abroad.

"A major issue these days is risk management in Israel in relation to the arrival of problematic variants," the Knowledge Center explained, noting that this is especially concerning over the Passover holiday when citizens are traveling in and out of the country.

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

The Brazilian coronavirus strain traveled quickly 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 incoming flights from South and Central America, as well as from the United States and European countries, where the South African variant is spreading," the center warned.

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

"People should only...