One of the two Israeli doctors recently diagnosed with the new Omicron coronavirus strain said on Thursday that he was most likely infected in London.
Prof. Elad Maor, a cardiologist at Sheba Medical Center, tested positive for the new strain along with a colleague — Dr. Dan Elian, 69, who probably got infected from him — after he returned from a big medical conference in the UK attended by more than 1,200 people.
The two doctors had received three doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and are two out of four confirmed Omicron cases in Israel.
Professor Maor's admission raises concerns that Omricon arrived in the UK long before the initial estimation, and other doctors might have been exposed to it as well.
Maor, a father of three, arrived in London on November 19 and returned to Israel four days later. He began to exhibit symptoms within a few days and was found positive for COVID on the 27th, while suffering from fever, muscle pain, and sore throat.
Maor underwent a PCR test on November 20, on his second day in the UK, the day that followed and upon arriving in Israel - all three came back negative.
"It's interesting because this happened ten days ago in London, and the only scenario that makes sense is that I got infected on the last day of the conference, or maybe at the airport," he said. His wife and children have not been infected so far.
Dr. Dan Elian, who most likely contracted the virus from Maor said, "I feel fine, everything is normal, Maor came back to work on Thursday, and we even worked together. On Friday, we even went to a conference in Caesarea. The contagion must have occurred during our time in the same car."