JERUSALEM, Dec 22 (Reuters) – Israel is to offer a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to people older than 60 or with compromised immune systems, and to health workers, as part of a drive to ramp up the shots and outpace the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
A Health Ministry expert panel – whose findings have yet to be implemented – recommended on Tuesday that those eligible receive the fourth shot at least four months after receiving their third.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has sought to drum up higher Israeli turnout for vaccines, welcomed the panel’s statement as “great news that will help us overcome the Omicron wave that is spreading around the world”.
The panel further recommended that the time allotted between second and third shots be reduced to three months from five.
Such measures would be “part of the preparation for the fifth wave” of the pandemic, said the panel’s statement, which did not present specific data behind the recommendations.
“We are seeing a waning of protection against Omicron infection. This wave is growing in surprisingly high numbers… More than 80% of the panel supported this measure,” Arnon Shahar, a doctor on the expert panel, told Israel’s Army Radio.
