Professor Cyrille Cohen is head of Immunology at Bar Ilan University and a member of the advisory committee for vaccines for the Israeli Government. In a wide-ranging and forthright interview, the Professor tells Freddie Sayers:
*The Green Pass / vaccine passport concept is no longer relevant in the Omicron era and should be phased out (he expects it to be in short order in Israel)
*He and his colleagues were surprised and disappointed that the vaccines did not prevent transmission, as they had originally hoped
*The biggest mistake of the pandemic in Israel was closing schools and education – he apologised for that
*Widespread infection is now an inevitable part of future immunity — otherwise known as herd immunity
*Omicron has accelerated the pandemic into the endemic phase, in which Covid will be “like flu”