Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will receive his third shot of the coronavirus vaccine on Friday morning after the Advisory Committee for the Corona Vaccines and Epidemic Control voted to allow booster shots for anyone 40 and older.
The committee also said that teachers will be able to get inoculated, though it did not determine from what age. Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash is supposed to imminently rule on that.
It is also recommended that pregnant women get the third shot.
“The State of Israel continues to be at the forefront of the global response to the pandemic,” Bennett said. “The citizens of Israel were the first in the world to receive the third vaccine, and we continue to open up the possibility to more and more age groups.”
Meuhedet started vaccinating individuals who were at their clinics already on Thursday night. All of the other health funds announced that appointments could be made for Friday morning.
“The State of Israel continues to be at the forefront of the global response to the pandemic,” Bennett said. “The citizens of Israel were the first in the world to receive the third vaccine, and we continue to open up the possibility to more and more age groups.”
The minimum age for teachers will be determined by Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash.
Meuhedet started vaccinating individuals who were at their clinics already on Thursday night. All of the other health funds announced that appointments could be made for Friday morning.
While Israel registered 600 serious patients on Thursday, 10 cases of a new strain of the Delta AY3 variant was discovered in the country, just days after a senior health official warned that if such a variant were to reach Israel, it could send the country straight to a lockdown that authorities were trying to avoid.
Of the 10 cases, eight were reported among people who had recently returned from abroad. Another two are thought to have become infected in Israel.
More than 1.2 million Israelis have already received a third shot, including 55% of individuals age 60-69, 72% of those 70-79, 68% of those 80-89, and 62% of those over 90. Among the 50-59 cohort for whom the vaccination campaign only started last Friday, 26% have already received a booster.
Israel was the first country to start vaccinating entire sectors of its population for the third time on July 30, after registering a decrease in the inoculation efficacy among the elderly, many of whom were fully vaccinated by the end of January.
While authorities and experts in several other countries have expressed skepticism about the need for a booster, some decided in the past few days to follow through with plans for a third vaccination in the upcoming weeks.
US health authorities announced on Wednesday that starting September 20, a third shot will be available to all Americans 12 and up, eight months after they received their second dose.
“Among the elderly, we see a significant difference between those who received the third dose and those who did not,” Dr. Tal Brosh, head of Infectious Disease Unit at the Samson Assuta Ashdod Hospital and a member of the advisory committee, said to Radio 103 FM. “Nothing but the vaccine specifically protects this group.”
The first data released by Maccabi Health Services on Wednesday indicates that the booster has so far proven to be 86% effective in preventing infections among the elderly, a very high rate considering that the efficacy of the previous two doses had dropped to as low as 16% for that group.
Preliminary figures also show that the booster also offers strong protection against serious symptoms.
New data released on Thursday by the Health Ministry on side effects confirmed that the third vaccine appears to elicit fewer side effects than the first two shots.
The new strain comes from South America and was first identified in the US.
“If it reaches Israel, we will get to the lockdown that we so desperately want to avoid,” Dr. Asher Shalmon, director of the Health Ministry’s Department of International Relations, told the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee on Monday.
The strain appears to be more contagious and more resistant to the vaccines, Shalmon added. However, on the same day, Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash said there was not yet enough information to assess the danger of the variant.
Also on Thursday, Minister of Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana presented the outline that will allow hasidim to travel to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. The coronavirus cabinet will review it on Sunday.
According to the outline, all travelers will be required to be tested 72 hours before their flight, whether they are vaccinated or not. Similarly, returning to the country will require a coronavirus test 72 hours in advance of one’s flight.
Travelers will be asked to fill out a quarantine form 24 hours before arriving. On arrival, they will once again test at the airport and then enter isolation for a minimum of seven days.
"We learned lessons from the mistakes made last year,” Kahana said. “The outline that has been formulated will allow travel to Uman while maintaining rules that will secure health.”
Last year, when coronavirus was was surging across the country and former coronavirus commissioner Prof. Ronni Gamzu said that allowing Israelis to travel to Uman in the Ukraine on Rosh Hashanah could lead to a spike in infections and they should not go, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu caved to pressure from the haredim and said he would ensure that at least some of these Israelis could gather at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.
Ultimately, some 30,000 pilgrims traveled to Uman, bringing plane loads of sick people back to Israel – most of whom then defied mandatory quarantine requirements, spreading the disease in their own communities and then to the rest of the country.