Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday that Israel could soon approve a third COVID-19 vaccine dose to those other than the immunocompromised, during a visit to a retirement home in Jerusalem.
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"We're on top of it, believe me," said Bennett. "For at least a month [we've been working on] things that need to come to fruition. We're very close. The less we talk about it, the greater chance it'll happen. I'm on it."
Social Equality Minister Meirav Cohen and Labor and Welfare Minister Meir Cohen joined Bennett at the Migdal Nofim nursing home in the capital.
Cohen advocated for giving a third dose of the vaccine to elderly individuals, saying that "the benefits of doing so could be immense."
Earlier this month, Israel became the world's first country to offer a booster shot with national health fund providers administering a third COVID-19 vaccine dose to immunocompromised adults.
The move came before US and European regulators approved Pfizer's request for a third vaccine dose.
The Israeli government has been under pressure to push forward with expanding the booster shot to more of the vulnerable population, especially the elderly, as the country faces a renewed outbreak of the virus due to the spread of the highly infectious delta variant.
Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been a vocal critic of the government's handling of the distribution of a third vaccine dose, accusing the government of failing to bring millions of vaccines to the country already paid for so that elderly citizens can be administered a third dose.
Netanyahu said that the country needed 2 million more vaccines so that the elderly can receive the booster shot.
Meanwhile, the 2,000 Israelis who have already received a third dose over the past two weeks haven't shown any irregular symptoms compared to the first dose.
Based on internal data from national health funds and hospitals in the country, the third dose appears to be safe and that the majority of its consequent side-effects, such as fever or pain in the area of the jab, dissipated in a manner of hours or days.
While this information was still not final or official, Health Ministry officials are using it as an indicator for their decision, which they are currently in the process of making, to be the first country in the world to administer a third dose to anyone over the age of 60 – even before approval from international public health bodies, such as the US Food and Drug Administration.
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