{"id":1183701,"date":"2022-01-03T14:04:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T19:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1183701"},"modified":"2022-01-03T14:04:41","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T19:04:41","slug":"omicron-could-lead-israel-to-herd-immunity-health-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/omicron-could-lead-israel-to-herd-immunity-health-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Omicron Could Lead Israel To Herd Immunity, Health Official Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fomicron-could-lead-israel-to-herd-immunity-health-official-says%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1183701&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Remember herd immunity?<\/p>\n<p>That was all the rage when COVID-19 first hit the world. The idea: When some percentage of people has had the virus or been immunized \u2014 thus making antibodies \u2014 COVID-19 would just fade away. But that number went from around 60% to 70% to \u2026 well, we\u2019ll just never really get there. Then variants of the virus began to emerge, making herd immunity that much more elusive.<\/p>\n<p>But now Israel\u2019s top health official says the country could reach herd immunity amid surging Omicron infections, which early studies show is far more transmissible than the Delta variant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe [infection] numbers will have to be very high in order to reach herd immunity,\u201d said Nachman Ash, director-general of the Health Ministry, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/article\/3161876\/omicron-surge-could-lead-israel-herd-immunity-says-nations-top-health-official\">according<\/a> to Reuters. \u201cThis is possible but we don\u2019t want to reach it by means of infections, we want it to happen as a result of many people vaccinating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Denmark\u2019s chief epidemiologist predicted the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron could soon lead to the end of the worldwide pandemic,&nbsp;meaning \u201cwe will have our normal lives back in two months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tyra Grove Krause said on Danish TV 2 that a new study from Denmark\u2019s State Serum Institute found that the risk of winding up in the hospital with Omicron is half that seen with the previous Delta variant. She also said that like the emergence of the variant in South Africa, cases will rise, then quickly fall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we will have that in the next two months, and then I hope the infection will start to subside and we get our normal lives back,\u201d she said on Monday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10364503\/Denmark-health-chief-says-Omicron-bringing-END-pandemic.html\">according<\/a> to the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOmicron will peak at the end of January, and in February we will see declining infection pressure and a decreasing pressure on the health care system,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we have to make an effort in January, because it will be hard to get through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And she said that once Omicron becomes the dominant strain of the virus, the world will be better off. \u201cOmicron is here to stay, and it will provide some massive spread of infection in the coming month[s]. When it\u2019s over, we\u2019re in a better place than we were before,\u201d the study said.<\/p>\n<p>Krause said that the highly communicable Omicron variant appears to be milder, which means more people will catch it, have less serious symptoms \u2014 and then be immune. That could begin to move the world toward herd immunity.<\/p>\n<p>Her comments mirror those of top U.S. immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, who <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/thisweek\">appeared<\/a> Sunday on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week With George Stephanopoulos.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things that we hope for, George, is that this thing will peak after a period of a few weeks and turn around. We have seen that happen in South Africa, where they had a major surge, but, as quickly as the surge went up, it turned around,\u201d Fauci said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut what about the evidence that Omicron leads to less serious infection, less serious illness?\u201d Stephanopoulos asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, there\u2019s accumulating evidence, George, that that is the case.&nbsp;We first got inkling of that in South Africa. When one looked at the relationship and the ratio between hospitalizations and cases, it was lower, the duration of hospital stay was lower, the requirements for oxygen was lower. We\u2019re seeing a bit of that, not as pronounced, in the U.K., but certainly that trend. And if you look here at the United States, we don\u2019t want to get complacent at all, and you don\u2019t want to jump to a positive conclusion, because it\u2019s still early,\u201d Fauci said.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban last month conducted a small study that found people infected with Omicron \u2014 and especially those who have been fully vaccinated \u2014 developed a higher immunity to Delta.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, involved 15 vaccinated and unvaccinated Omicron patients in South Africa, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-12-28\/world-hits-record-daily-covid-cases-as-omicron-mars-christmas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according<\/a> to Bloomberg News, which noted that two were excluded because they didn\u2019t detectably neutralize Omicron,\u201d the New York Post <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/12\/28\/south-africa-study-suggests-omicron-infection-could-boost-immunity\/\">reported<\/a>. \u201cThe authors, led by Alex Sigal and Khadija Khan, found that while the neutralization of Omicron increased 14-fold over 14 days after the enrollment, there also was a 4.4-fold increase in neutralization of the Delta variant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe increase in Delta variant neutralization in individuals infected with Omicron may result in decreased ability of Delta to re-infect those individuals,\u201d the authors said, adding that the findings are \u201cconsistent with Omicron displacing the Delta variant, since it can elicit immunity which neutralizes making re-infection with Delta less likely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent, and ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2015. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">member<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember herd immunity? That was all the rage when COVID-19 first hit the world. The idea: When some percentage of people has had the virus or been immunized \u2014 thus making antibodies \u2014 COVID-19 would just fade away. But that number went from around 60% to 70% to \u2026 well, we\u2019ll just never really get &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1183701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1183701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}