Jerusalem – The Constitution Committee, chaired by MK Yaakov Asher, today (Monday) discussed a government declaration requiring returnees from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, or Soto quarantine.
Dr. Ofra Habkin, a Health Ministry official, reiterated concern about mutations at the hearing: “We started looking at people who had returned from South Africa who tested positive for Covid. We located 12 such people and discovered the mutation in two chains.”
Referring to the British mutation, she said that it had taken control of the disease in the UK, and in Israel, at the beginning of December we could say that it was in 3% -2% of the all covid cases, and at the end of December the mutation was detected in over 50% of all patients tested positive for the disease.
At the end of her remarks, she clarified: “Our primary focus now, is to stop the South African mutation. We do not know definitively how much the vaccine affects it and this remains to be seen. There are several mutations present and the Pfizer vaccine has been proven to be effective for only one mutation and that is not enough. Therefore it’s important that people arriving from those countries are isolated, so we have time to assess the development. ”
Prof. Nadav Davidovich, acting chairman of the Association of Public Health Physicians at the National Medical Association added: “Variants have been around since the beginning and it is important to differentiate between them. We have been calling for genetic mapping from the beginning and I am glad the state has begun doing it.”
The chairman, MK Yaakov Asher, clarified that according to the Initial Corona Laws if the declaration is for a number of fewer than 5 countries and less than 20 days have passed since the first declaration, it is not necessary to get approval from the committee, but only to notify about it. In light of this, the committee was not required to vote on the declaration and it will remain in effect until Sunday 17 January.
