Israel’s vaccination campaigns have gone ahead.
Israel will begin providing a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine to people 60 years of age and older, becoming the first country in the world to widely make available an additional vaccine against the omicron strain.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said a fourth dose would also be made available to medical staff, who were last injected at least four months ago. Last week, Israel approved additional injections for immunocompromised people, as well as residents of nursing homes and patients in geriatric departments.
Daily new cases, topping 5,000 cases last week in the nation of 9.5 million people, are expected to quadruple by the end of the week, Bennett said. The number of recharges could be as high as 50,000 a day, he said, or nearly five times the previous peak. Severe cases are still far below previous records but have started to rise over the past week.
“We must keep an eye on the ball and act quickly and decisively if we are to continue to engage and work with the country as openly as possible throughout this pandemic,” Bennett said.
Israel’s vaccination campaigns have been ahead of the curve, with the country being the first to immunize the majority of the population and most aggressive in administering booster shots last year. But the concept of a fourth dose has become chaotic because of the lack of firm data on omicrons or the effectiveness of the fourth dose.
Last month, Bennett announced plans to vaccinate everyone 60 and older, but the rollout has stalled due to objections from some expert advisers. At the same time, Israel says it has data showing weakened immunity in people of that age, who received the booster starting in August. And some advisers say even that in the absence of data, Israel should act as this variant is highly contagious.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
