Isreal’s prime minister on Thursday announced that the country would offer a coronavirus booster to provide its citizens over 60 years of age who have already been vaccinated.
The announcement by Naftali Bennett makes Isreal, which launched one of the world’s most successful vaccination drives earlier this year, the first country to offer a third dose of a Western vaccine to its citizen on a wide scale.
Benett said, ” I’m announcing this evening the beginning of the campaign to receive the booster vaccine, the third vaccine,” Bennett said in a nationally televised address. “Reality proves the vaccines are safe. Reality also proves the vaccines protect against severe morbidity and death. And like the flu vaccine that needs to be renewed from time to time, it is the same in this case.”
Isreal would give the third shot of booster vaccination to anyone who had attained 60 years of age and who had been vaccinated for the second dose five months ago are eligible.
Benett who is 49 years old said his first call after the news conference would be to his mother to encourage her to get her booster shot.
As concerns grow about the fast-spreading Delta variant, the inoculation will begin on Sunday, 1st August 2021, as a part of a “complementary vaccination drive”.
Benett during an event on Friday stated that the decision was reached after a “considerable research and analysis”, and that the information gathered would be shared globally.
He also added, “The only way we can defeat COVID is together. Together means sharing information. Together means sharing methods, technologies, insights, and actionable steps.”
