In recent news, immunocompromised patients in the State of Israel will be given a third shot of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, from Sunday onwards. This was announced by Nitzan Horowitz, the health minister, earlier on the same day.
Horowitz went on to say that healthcare providers will be given permission to determine the patients who are eligible for the third shot. This opportunity is only being granted to those with particularly severe conditions, such as those who recently went through an organ transplant.
Meanwhile, the country is continuously registering a substantial number of cases on a daily basis. At the beginning of the month of June, around 10 to 20 carriers of the deadly disease were popping up every day. However, that number has now reached several hundred. On the majority of days in the last week alone, Israel recorded more than 500 cases.
On Saturday, the Health Ministry announced that 261 new carriers of the virus had been identified. But this lower number was only a result of the fewer tests conducted. On this day, around 50,000 people had been tested, as compared to the routine 70,000.
As of now, the number of active cases in the country stands at a figure of 4,100, whereas it had fallen below 200 just a couple of weeks ago. At the same time, there has been a minimal increase in the rate of serious morbidity. Health officials reported 44 serious patients on the night of Saturday. In the month of April, when the number of active cases was similar, 260 patients in Israel were in serious condition.
The health minister went on to reveal that relevant officials of the government have had a conversation with Pfizer and put in a request to speed up the next shipment of vaccines. He said that the country is still waiting on an answer on whether or not the next shipment will be moved up.
As of now, the vaccines in storage are going to expire on the 31st of July, which means that youngsters aged below 18 will not be able to get the first shot administered until the next shipment arrives. This is because the second shot requires a time span of three weeks after the first jab, but with no vaccines in storage that will not be possible. However, the country does have a shipment of around 200,000 jabs of the Moderna vaccine, which has been authorized only for adults.
In other news, around 40% of youngsters below the age of 19 were given the vaccine as of Saturday night. This is largely due to the efforts of the government and the relevant authorities to get people in this age group inoculated.
Some 200,000 citizens of Israel were vaccinated in the last month, which mostly included teens aged between 12 and 16. Health funds ensured that their complexes were open till late to accommodate anyone who wanted to get the jab.