Israel approves third COVID-19 booster shot, for elderly, those with compromised immune systems

Since the delta variant emerged in Israel in June, the country's health ministry has reported a sharp drop in vaccine effectiveness.
COVID vaccine
By Ava Castelli

Israel is offering a third booster shot of the Pfizer-BioTech vaccine to people over 60 or adults with compromised immune systems, Israel news outlets said Thursday.

Israel will essentially be the testing-ground in figuring out whether the third shot can better protect people from COVID-19’s highly-contractable delta variant, according to Reuters.

Officials in other countries including United States are also considering a third shot. 

"It's rather complex," Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of public health at the Health Ministry told Kan public radio. "We're presently seeing outbreaks largely among children and their parents who weren't necessarily vaccinated in January and February and we need to identify the (statistical) biases."

The data regarding the third shot is not available yet, but there has been said to be an increase in risk of infection as a result. 

According to Israeli authorities, about half of the current patients hospitalized from COVID-19 have already received the vaccine, but are still suffering from the virus.