Israeli President Isaac Herzog received a third shot of coronavirus vaccine on Friday, kicking off a campaign to give booster doses to people aged over 60 as part of efforts to slow the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.
Herzog, 60, received a booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He said he was proud to launch the booster vaccination initiative "which is so vital to enable normal circumstances of life as much as possible in this very challenging pandemic."
The president was accompanied by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who urged the importance of booster shots in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and pledged that Israel would share all the information it gleaned from the initiative.
"Israel is a pioneer in going ahead with the third dose for older people of the age of 60 and above. The fight against the COVID pandemic is a global fight. The only way we can defeat COVID is together," Bennett said.
The booster campaign, with shots administered by health maintenance organizations, will effectively turn Israel into a testing ground for a third dose before approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
On the eve of the booster rollout Bennett said Israel had already given 2,000 immunosuppressed people a third dose with no severe adverse events.
His government hopes that stepped up inoculation efforts will help avoid further costly lockdowns.
Israel was a world leader in the vaccination rollout, and around 57% of the 9.3 million population has been double-vaccinated. Many seniors got their first shots in December, January and February as they were regarded as the most vulnerable sector of the population.
But since the emergence of the Delta variant, the health ministry has twice reported a drop in the vaccine's efficacy against infection and a slight decrease in its protection against severe disease.
Daily new infections have spiked to more than 2,000, up from a handful of cases per day a few months ago and about 160 people are currently hospitalized with severe symptoms.
(Reporting by Stephen Farrell; Editing by Catherine Evans)
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams is seeking to move up the start of his trial on corruption and bribery charges so he can focus on his campaign for reelection this spring.
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A local high school honoured veterans of the “Forgotten War†on Monday.
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The Lethbridge Hurricanes broke open a close game with three goals in the first two minutes of the third period as they defeated the Warriors 7-3 in a game played Friday night in Moose Jaw.
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Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus was among approximately 120 people who gathered Sunday night for a candlelight vigil near the scene of a vicious attack against a 16-year-old in Cobalt.
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On Thursday morning, Dave Penny officially ended a suggested hundred-day isolation period that followed his diagnosis and stem cell treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. On Thursday night, Penny returned to a stage at a downtown St. John's bar, regaling a small crowd with songs and stories with a distinctive Newfoundland flair.
A Memorial University scientist says the mysterious white blobs washing up on Newfoundland beaches are actually gobs of plastic -- and they need to be cleaned up.
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