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Israel will begin rolling out a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine with immediate effect. The additional dose will be given to people over 60 years-old, medical workers, and people with a suppressed immune system, the prime minister’s office announced, following a recommendation from the country’s panel of coronavirus experts.
“Wonderful news, do not waste time – go get vaccinated,” Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.
Those eligible for the fourth dose will be given it provided at least four months have passed since their third dose.
“The State of Israel is continuing to stand at the forefront of the global effort to deal with the pandemic. The citizens of Israel were the first in the world to receive the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and we are continuing to pioneer with the fourth dose as well,” Bennett said.
In a related announcement, the recommended gap between a second and third dose is also being shortened from five months to three months.
One of the members of the expert panel told Israeli radio Tuesday evening that the decision to go for a fourth dose had not been an easy one.
“We don’t really have data yet on the level of immunity, like we did when we decided on the third dose, but on the other hand, there is really scary data out there in the rest of the world, Professor Galia Rahav said.
“In a situation like this, if you don’t act immediately, you miss the train,” she added.
New measures: The government’s ministerial committee tasked with driving policy on the pandemic also met Tuesday, deciding on a number of new measures in the wake of the new wave of infections brought on by the Omicron variant.
In particular, schoolchildren living in areas of low vaccine up-take among under-18s could find themselves back in online schooling as…
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Source : cnn
