Israel closes border to foreigners as more countries report Omicron version

Israel’s government on Sunday banned all foreign nationals from entering the country and restored a controversial contact-tracing surveillance program as part of efforts to stop the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant across its borders.

Meanwhile, Australia and Austria reported their first cases, joining a slew of countries including the UK, Germany, Belgium, Israel and Italy that have traced a strain that officials say is linked to COVID-19. With this, people may be at greater risk of falling ill. Other times and may be more permeable than other types.

Dutch health officials said on Sunday that they had confirmed 13 cases of the new version among 61 positive Covid-19 tests from passengers on two flights that arrived in the Netherlands from South Africa on Friday. He said it was possible that further sequencing would reveal more cases of Omicron.

The rise of Omicron raises questions about whether a more contagious new version will worsen the already severe cold Covid-19 wave in some Western countries, presenting policymakers with politically and socially difficult choices.

The governor of New York declared a state of emergency to prepare for a possible COVID-19 surge from Omicron Edition. On Saturday, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the version is already in the US.

On Wednesday, China published a report saying the country could experience “the real possibility of a huge outbreak” if it eases its zero-tolerance policies and is followed by Western countries, including the US. , so this report came before it was announced by the World Health Organization. Omicron is a type of anxiety.

After detecting one case of the new strain on Friday, Israel is now testing seven others for the new version, three of whom have received three shots of the vaccine and four of whom have been vaccinated twice or Has recovered from the virus for more than six months. First, which means they may have lost some protection from the virus.

Along with the new travel restrictions, Israel’s cabinet voted to allow the country’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, to renew the use of contact tracing through cellular location services for matters related to the Omicron version.

Israeli civil- and human rights groups have condemned the involvement of the Shin Bet, whose mandate is to fight terrorism, as a serious breach of privacy.

The new rules require Israelis returning from abroad to be in quarantine for at least three days. People who are considered fully vaccinated – which means being cured of the virus in Israel three times or within six months of the second dose or – will be released from quarantine after a negative PCR test.

Those who have not been fully vaccinated will have to wait until the seventh day, until a negative PCR test frees them from isolation. All Israelis are already required to have a PCR test at the airport upon their return to the country, meaning they will need a total of two negative tests before being released from isolation.

Israel’s health ministry said on Sunday that Israel’s travel to 50 African countries would remain banned. The government is also considering banning Israelis from visiting counties that are regional travel hubs with many travelers from Africa, such as the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, Israeli Interior Minister Aylet Shek told Israel’s Army Radio.

Despite a massive booster shot campaign, mandatory indoor masking and already a COVID-19 passport program, Israeli officials say a recent trend of increase in new daily coronavirus cases means the country is on the verge of another surge. It is possible. Infections, after falling to a few hundred cases daily in early November. The population of Israel is about 9.3 million people.

Austrian authorities said late Saturday that they had detected one such suspected case in a traveler who returned from South Africa last week, although further sequencing is needed to confirm.

Officials said the infected person, who currently shows no symptoms, received a second vaccination with the mRNA vaccine about nine months ago.

Australia reported its first two cases on Saturday in two passengers who arrived in Sydney on a flight from southern Africa. Health officials said the couple was asymptomatic and had been fully vaccinated. On arrival in Australia, he was tested for Kovid-19.

Nearly two years after the first confirmed outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the rapid spread of a new variant in southern Africa shows how the coronavirus is still the best efforts of policymakers around the world to return to post-pandemic conditions. can thwart its best efforts.

Further analysis of the Omicron version will determine whether governments will respond by re-imposing unpopular and economically harmful restrictions on their populations.

But if scientists confirm early indications that Omicron is more permeable than the delta version and capable of infecting people for a second time, it raises new questions about how societies will live with Covid-19 in the long run.

“How much more can society take?” Simon Quijano-Evans, chief economist at Gemcorp Capital LLP in London, asked in an email to clients on Saturday, without answering the question.

In Britain, which has endured a relatively high number of Covid-19 cases since the summer without reimposing massive restrictions, the government said on Saturday it would once again require masks in shops and on public transport And anyone entering the country will need to be isolated. PCR test shows a negative result.

Since the summer, several EU countries had achieved some degree of control over the virus by maintaining mask mandates and implementing measures – such as vaccine requirements for entertainment and even workplaces. To enter – with the aim of pressurizing people to take shots.

But even before Omicron emerged, the surge in EU cases, which has overtaken the US on a per capita basis, had shaken policymakers’ confidence, prompting some officials to reimpose lockdowns and curfews and almost Was motivated to make vaccines mandatory for all.

Meanwhile, Omicron could cause Asian countries that have followed zero-tolerance policies to reconsider their recent, temporary reopening plans.

On Saturday, the Australian government tightened border restrictions barring people who are not Australian citizens, permanent residents or their immediate family from entering the country if they have lived in several African countries within the past 14 days. Those countries include South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Australia reopened its international border in November, ending one of the world’s strictest pandemic-era travel restrictions, as authorities try to suppress Covid-19 in order to live with it.

Last week, China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report that said the country could face more than 630,000 Covid-19 infections a day if it followed the travel restrictions and restrictions adopted by the US and other Western countries. abandoned its ultrastructural containment measures, including pandemic measures. Country.

The researchers used August data from the US, Britain, France, Israel and Spain to assess the impact on China if it adopted pandemic policies similar to those of those countries.

It said it could see as many as 10,000 serious cases a day, potentially “having a devastating impact on China’s medical system and causing a major disaster within the nation.”