Health officials expressed concern Monday after the coronavirus reproduction rate rose to 1.08, signaling a spread of the disease in the country.
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The Health Ministry reported Tuesday morning that of the 99,554 Israelis it screened for the virus in the past 24 hours, 682 (0.74%) tested positive. There are currently 5,904 active cases in the country with 172 patients hospitalized. Of those, 128 are in critical condition.
Thus far, 4,052,354 Israelis have been fully vaccinated, 5,766,304 received their third jabs and 6,267,456 got inoculated with one dose.
Israel has reported 1,341,305 COVID cases, including 8,177 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic in March, 2020.
Officials contributed the alarming rise in the reproduction rate to the raging morbidity rate in Europe.
"The only thing that worries me at the moment is entries from abroad," Gili Regev-Yochay, director of Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, said. "Unvaccinated people also enter [Israel], and that can cause an outbreak."
Just last week, the government convened to discuss adding several European countries with high morbidity rates onto its no-fly list but decided against it.
Regev-Yochay said the potential to get infected existed no matter what country in the world one traveled to and called on all Israelis to exhibit caution.
Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash also called the rise in the reproduction rate "worrisome," but did not think it meant that another infection wave was beginning in Israel.
When asked about the possibility of a fourth jab, he said: "We do not see signs of a decline in vaccine efficacy, so there are no preparations. We are creating the option of purchasing more vaccines in case of a decline, and that is our agreement with the vaccine manufacturer. But at the moment, there is no actual preparation" for such a campaign.
Ash called on all those eligible to get vaccinated with the booster shot.
Also on Tuesday, the ministry launched the national vaccination campaign for children ages 5-11.
"This vaccine protects children and there is no excuse to expose them to the disease," Health Ministry Nitzan Horowitz said during a visit to a vaccination site in honor of the launch.
"The doses are safe and received all the necessary approvals both in the United States and here in Israel. We recommend everyone to get vaccinated to protect themselves and also to prevent infecting others. Right now, the majority of those verified are children, and if we vaccinate them, we can stop the current wave," he said.
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Meanwhile, the results of a Pfizer vaccine study showed on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine remained 100% effective four months after the second dose in children ages 12-15.
The pharmaceutical giant said that the research, which involved 2,228 trial participants, will help support its applications for full approval in the United States and worldwide.
No serious safety concerns were observed in individuals with at least six months of follow-up after the second dose. Efficacy was consistently high across gender, race, obesity levels, and comorbidity status.
"As the global health community works to increase the number of vaccinated people around the world, these additional data provide further confidence in our vaccine's safety and effectiveness profile in adolescents," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said.
"This is especially important as we see rates of COVID-19 climbing in this age group in some regions, while vaccine uptake has slowed. We look forward to sharing these data with the FDA and other regulators," he said.
In May of this year, the Food and Drug Administration granted the vaccine "emergency use authorization" for adolescents, and Pfizer has since sought full approval. The vaccine is currently only fully approved in people aged 16 and older.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
