Israel to administer third Covid vaccine to over 60s

JERUSALEM – Israel will begin giving a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to people aged 60 and over, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Thursday, citing the growing risk of a virus wave fueled by the Delta variant.

The health ministry asked the country’s four major healthcare providers to start giving a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Sunday to Israelis in that age group who received a second dose more than five months. President Isaac Herzog, 60, will be the first to receive a booster shot on Friday, Bennett said.

“The battle against Covid is a global effort,” Mr. Bennett said.

Whether booster shots are needed for the elderly is a far cry from scientists. Most studies indicate that the immunity resulting from mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna is long lasting, and researchers are still trying to interpret recent Israeli data suggesting a decline in the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. months after inoculation.

Pfizer on Wednesday offered its own study showing a marginal decline in efficacy against symptomatic coronavirus infection months after vaccination, although the vaccine remained potently effective against serious illness and death. The company has also started advocating for booster injections in the United States.

The latest move by the Israeli government, one of the first to administer vaccines, follows an analysis by the Ministry of Health which estimated that the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in preventing serious illness remains above 90% , but that his ability to stop the infection had waned over time.

Some experts have pushed back the rush to approve a recall in Israel. The data are too uncertain, they say, to estimate how much effectiveness has declined. For example, the epidemic caused by the Delta first hit parts of the country with high vaccination rates and hit other areas later.

Since June, there has been a steady rise in the daily rate of new cases of the virus in Israel, and the seven-day average is 1,670 per day. The figure topped 2,300 one day this week, a spike that health experts attributed to the spread of the most contagious Delta variant.

The daily rate is still well below that of the third wave of infections in Israel in January, when the number of new daily cases briefly exceeded 11,000. But it is much higher than in mid-June, when the figure has fallen to single digits and the government has relaxed almost all antivirus restrictions to allow daily life to return to normal.

However, the number of patients with coronavirus in hospitals remains relatively low; a total of 159 people were hospitalized on Thursday, far less than the figure of more than 2,000 at the height of the third wave in january.

In the United States, health officials in the Biden administration increasingly believe vulnerable populations may need additional vaccines even as research continues on how long coronavirus vaccines remain effective.

There is a growing consensus among scientists, for example, that people with weakened immune systems may need more than the prescribed two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Earlier this month, Israel began giving a third injection of Pfizer vaccine to people with weakened immune systems. The country has already given 2,000 of those people a third dose without serious adverse events, Bennett said Thursday.

Although Israel’s vaccination rate has declined in recent months, it was one of the early leaders in the race for vaccination against the virus, allowing the country to return to mainstream life faster than most. places.

Nearly 60% of Israelis are fully vaccinated, mostly with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and the country is seen as a test case for a post-vaccine world.

Israeli health officials hailed the decision to give an additional injection to the elderly, while stressing that the original two doses still remain protective against serious illness and death.

Gadi Segal, head of a virus department at Sheba Medical Center in central Israel, told Kan Radio that vaccinated patients admitted to hospitals were much less likely to need ventilators.

Professor Segal said: “There is no doubt that the number of sick people is increasing. The vaccine’s ability to prevent infection is less, but it is very effective in preventing patients from reaching the point of respiratory failure.

He added: “I am under 60, and when I am offered a third dose, I will happily take it. “

Israel has come under scrutiny for its initial reluctance to offer vaccines to a significant number of Palestinians living under different levels of Israeli control in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel initially said diplomatic agreements signed in the 1990s with the Palestinian leadership, known as the Oslo Accords, gave the Palestinian health authorities responsibility for procuring their own vaccines. Human rights activists said other clauses in the agreements, as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention, gave Israel a legal obligation to assist.

But when Israel offered around a million vaccines in June to the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank, the authority withdrew from the deal because it said the vaccines would have expired before the authorities had time to administer them. . Some of the surplus vaccines were then administered to South Korea.

Sharon LaFraniere and Carl Zimmer contributed reporting.