Some experts insist that inoculation with the fourth dose is premature.
The announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Benet that Israel would begin administering the fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine makes his country the first in the world to use this strategy to halt the advance of the omicron variant, something that some experts see it as a gamble.
After a very fast inoculation campaign with the first and second doses and being the first country in the world to administer the Pfizer booster dose, Israel is also on the way to becoming the first to massively apply a fourth dose of the vaccine produced by the pharmaceutical company. American.
“It is wonderful news that will help us overcome this wave of the omicron variant that is hitting the entire world,” Benet said last night after the announcement, emphasizing that “Israel continues to be at the forefront of the global effort to deal with the pandemic. “.
Although there is still the final approval of the director general of the Ministry of Health, the recommendation of the committee of experts that advises the Government in the response to the pandemic was to begin by administering the second booster dose to those over 60 years of age and to health workers, as long as four months have passed since the third dose.
In addition, they advised reducing the period between the second and third doses from five to three months, to increase immunization levels.
This decision comes after registering more than 1,300 new infections yesterday, the highest figure since mid-October, and a doubling in the number of cases of the omicron variant, which now reaches 340. On the other hand, this also occurs after the Announcement of the first death resulting from the new strain, which, however, was later rectified by Health, which indicated that it was a case of the delta variant.
A bet of the Government
“It is a very difficult decision,” he explained to Efe Nadav Davidovitch, director of the Ben Gurion University School of Public Health and a member of the advisory committee that recommended the fourth dose.
Although he pointed out that signs of a decrease in the immunity provided by the third dose of the vaccine have already been detected, this epidemiologist acknowledged that its effectiveness against the new strain is not yet fully known, which, he anticipated, will generate a “huge wave of infections “.
Other experts insist that inoculation with the fourth dose is premature, due both to the lack of information on its effectiveness against the new strain and to the low number of serious cases and deaths registered so far in the world as a result of the spread of this variant.
“I believe that this is an attempt by the Government to avoid a new general shutdown,” said Cyrille Cohen, director of the immunotherapy laboratory of the Bar Ilán University, in dialogue with Efe, and that, although he also advises the authorities in the fight with the pandemic, he was not part of the team that recommended the fourth dose.
“The problem is that we still do not know if it is effective against omicron, so I am a bit surprised,” he added.
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The fifth wave is here
This week the authorities warned the population that the country is already facing the beginning of a fifth wave of the pandemic and, after closing the borders to foreigners and limiting the travel of citizens and residents last night, last night they announced the first internal restrictions implemented since detection of the new variant.
These include restrictions on access to shopping centers and limit attendance at schools in localities with the highest rate of cases.
In recent days, the positivity rate stood at around 1.2%, a low figure compared to other countries but which Israel had not registered since the end of the fourth wave, as well as the rate of reproduction of the virus, which surpassed 1.25 this week for the first time since early August.
The numbers of serious cases have not yet increased and in recent days they have even decreased, reaching today in the 80s, less than 1% of the 8,637 active cases in the country.
Vaccination figures have remained practically stagnant for two months, with 63% of the population inoculated with at least two doses of Pfizer and almost 45% also with the booster dose.
After the approval a month ago of the inoculation of children between 5 and 11 years old, only 12% of this age group came to receive the puncture. (I)
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