As omicron variant spreads, labs show it hasn’t reached the West Bank

December 11th, 2021

Awake Goy

A Palestinian laboratory specialist tests vials of samples for the coronavirus at Medical Laboratory in Gaza City on November 28, 2021. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

The Latest:

463,573 Palestinians tested positive for COVID-19; 455,085 recoveries; 4,830 deaths
Of those who tested positive, 245,046 live in the West Bank, 188,171 live in the Gaza Strip
1,348,800 Israelis tested positive for COVID-19; 1,334,792 recoveries; 8,210 deaths

While the omicron variant of the coronavirus, thought to be more contagious than previous mutations, spread to 57 countries this week, Palestinians announced no cases have been reported, after taking the extra measure of sending labs to an Israeli hospital for analysis.

On Monday spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Dr. Kamal Al-Shakhrah said, “This week the Palestinian Ministry of Health received results of DNA testing of 130 samples of COVID-19 labs sent to Israel to be examined and they were all negative for the omicron variant.”

“Palestine, until today, is free of any infection with the new mutation,” Al-Shakhrah said.

The samples were all taken from recent travelers who live in the West Bank and were examined at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. The measure was taken after at least 11 Israelis tested positive for the omicron variant. The first case, a physician who said he contracted the virus while in London, had interacted with over 100 people after he returned to Israel, but contact tracing revealed he had only spread the virus to one other person, another physician who drive him to a conference. The ride lasted an hour and a half and both men—while maskless—had received three doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the Times of Israel reported.

The big picture: Health officials are still scrambling to determine just how contagious omicron is. Part of the challenge is that experts are chasing outbreaks, deducing how many new cases arise in comparison to other variants. We covered that process in this newsletter before when we looked at the emergence of the delta variant and the UK’s infectious disease task force. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group, or SPI-M-O, found the delta variant is about 50% more contagious than the initial strain of the novel coronavirus. That was determined by looking at the overall number of new COVID-19 cases, and then calculating the percentage that came from delta. Scientists explained, while the gross number of cases remained level, the delta variant was rapidly rose, doubling at an unprecedented rate, and earlier strains fell.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s Director-General, told reporters on Wednesday, “We’re now starting to see a consistent picture of rapid increase in transmission although for now the exact rate of increase relative to other variants remains difficult to quantify.”

“In South Africa,” an early location where the new variant was identified, Ghebreyesus said, “the number of omicron cases is increasing quickly. However, omicron was detected when transmission of delta was very low so it had little competition.”

The first confirmed case of omicron was found in Botswana on November 11, 2021. Since then, has expanded to 57 countries and 22 states in the U.S., according to the WHO and the CDC. The first case in the U.S. was found in early December in San Francisco by a traveler returning from South Africa.

Palestinians work on the construction of a field hospital to support an excess of patients at European Gaza Hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on September 25, 2021. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

How prepared are Palestinians for an omicron wave?

At this time, it’s not clear how vaccines perform against the new variant, and vaccines have been the biggest boost to curbing Palestinian cases. Lockdown measures, while imposed throughout 2020 and 2021, were not strictly followed or enforced. As a result, Palestinians only saw a major reduction in cases once around 40% of the population became vaccinated.

As of Wednesday, the Ministry of Health said 1,363,418 in the West Bank and Gaza have received only one dose, and 146,834 have received three. An early study out of South Africa that is not yet peer-reviewed suggests the variant has less vaccine protection against transmission than other mutations, however, vaccines are still quite effective in preventing severe illness and death.

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