Professor Sigal Sadetsky, former head of public health services, has expressed concern over the rate at which the Omicron strain of COVID-19 has spread.
"We are apparently, to my great dismay, before the storm," Prof. Sadetsky said in an interview with 103 FM Radio. "In the first wave, people were complacent until the lockdown itself, and did not understand that we were in a process. Taking steps at the airport is the very correct thing to do now."
Regarding the estimation that Omicron is less dangerous than previous variants, Prof. Sadetsky said, "The pandemic is still too young for us to say that there is no one seriously ill. In South Africa it's a different type of population, first the outbreak was among young people who in any case were not expected to develop severe illness. From Britain, I am not sure we are hearing the same things. There as well the illness is new. We don't know what Omicron does."
"I hope that the news is that Omicron is lighter, but I am not sure of that at all. The high infection rate is something that we know, so in the end it will cause there to be many who are seriously ill. It's mathematics."
"I am absolutely in favor of the vaccines, and I think that we need to get vaccinated. At the same time, I am definitely against mandatory vaccination. Anyone who thinks that the entire story is dependent on vaccines is making a mistake. We will need to think about our behavior."