Professor Itamar Grotto, former Deputy Health Ministry Director General, responded to reports of a new lockdown aimed at controlling the spread of the Omicron strain of COVID-19.
"It's too early to talk about it," Prof. Grotto told 103 FM Radio. "Our situation relative to the world is very good, in general. It seems that the main reason for this is the booster dose. I estimate that the vaccine in three doses provides very good protection, and therefore we are in a good situation."
He also said that according to the statistics coming in from around the world, among the vaccinated "the illness is light, but it's almost certain that unvaccinated as well are suffering relatively light illness. Apparently the level of virulence has gone down. We see large gaps between the infection rate and what's happening in the hospitals."
When asked for his opinion on why the Netherlands declared a lockdown, he said: "The concern is greater than the scientific knowledge we've accumulated. Unfortunately people look a bit less at the fact that we are two years into the pandemic, and they act as if we are in 2020. There are vaccines, there are tests, it's a completely different game, and unfortunately they are playing the game from two years ago."
Regarding the possibility that a fourth dose may be necessary, Prof. Grotto said, "We need a lot more data. We need to look at the virulence of the virus. If we are talking about a virus that does nothing to people with three doses, maybe we don't need to vaccinate them, and we should let them be infected."