Tag Archives: EMa

The Sheba Medical Centre, Israel

This afternoon.

Via Haaretz:

The new coronavirus variant, omicron, has been detected in two Israeli doctors, one of whom had returned from a conference in London in the past week, a spokesperson for Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv confirmed.

The two doctors had received three doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, and so far have shown mild COVID-19 symptoms, the hospital said.

The physician who had returned from Britain had probably infected his colleague, it said.

…Israel shut its borders to foreigners from all countries for 14 days on Saturday to try to contain the spread of omicron and has reintroduced counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology to trace contacts of a handful of people who have likely been infected.

Two Doctors in Israel Diagnosed With Omicron COVID Variant (Harretz)

Meanwhile..,

The head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has said Covid-19 vaccines will continue to provide protection against new variants.

Emer Cooke added that there were key differences between the situation in Europe and in southern Africa, where the new variant is thought to have originated.

In Europe there was a larger proportion of the population already vaccinated, the population was older, and a booster campaign was already under way, she said.

“So there are a whole lot of factors ongoing at the moment that could impact the spread of the Omicron variants in Europe,” she added.

EMA chief says vaccines will give protection against new variants (RTÉ)

Meanwhile…