Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health division, told the coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday ahead of the decision to reopen Ben-Gurion Airport, that opening Israel’s borders without restraint could lead to catastrophe by allowing in multiple coronavirus variants.

“We are seeing a lot of variants out there, not just from New York,” she said.

“We need to ensure that we don’t find ourselves in a catastrophe within a month and then ask ourselves why we allowed people with variants in. We have to be careful – if variants enter the country, all the vaccinations will go to waste.”

Alroy-Preis added that “there’s also a variant that’s coming in from the Netherlands, which we’re testing.”

Israel’s Health Ministry stated on Tuesday that it has discovered three cases of the New York coronavirus variant in Israel.

There are also close to 500 cases of the South African virus variant in Israel, and last week, the first case of the Los Angeles variant was discovered in an Israeli who hadn’t been in California or in contact with someone who traveled abroad.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)