Israel
sticks with 4th vaccine shot, sees Omicron wave waning in a week
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[January 18, 2022]
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel will continue
to offer a fourth COVID-19 vaccine shot despite preliminary findings
that it is not enough to prevent Omicron infections, a senior health
official said on Tuesday, predicting contagions stoked by the variant
will wane in a week.
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The fastest country to roll out vaccinations a year ago, Israel last
month started offering a fourth shot - also known as a second
booster - to its most vulnerable and high-risk groups. It has held
off on expanding the offer to the wider population.
A preliminary study published by Israel's Sheba Medical Center on
Monday found that the fourth shot increases antibodies to even
higher levels than the third but "probably" not enough to fend off
the highly transmissible Omicron.
Health Ministry director-general Nachman Ash described those
findings as "unsurprising, to a degree" as Omicron infections had
been logged in some people after they received fourth doses.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Jan/18/images/ads/current/fricke_sda_LUAL_2021.png)
But "protection from serious morbidity, especially for the elderly
population and at-risk population, is still afforded by this vaccine
(dose), and therefore I call on people to keep coming to get
vaccinated," he told Army Radio.
In a statement on Tuesday, Sheba Medical Center said that even
though the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in use today did not provide
optimal infection protection against Omicron, "it is important to
continue vaccinating the at-risk population."
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![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Jan/18/images/ads/current/2021_lda_Businessdirectory.png) As elsewhere, Israel has seen
COVID-19 cases spiral due to Omicron. But it has
logged no deaths from the variant, and Ash said
there had been no increase in the number of
COVID-19 patients on ECMO machines - a gauge of
the most critical cases. "In
another week we will begin seeing a drop in the numbers, but we
still have two or three difficult weeks ahead," he said, adding that
some Health Ministry computers had been overloaded by the volume of
testing data since Sunday, disrupting COVID-19 updates.
Hoping to reduce strain on the economy, Israel on Monday cut the
mandatory quarantine period for COVID-19 carriers to five days. To
conserve PCRs and reduce queuing at public testing sites, it has
encouraged more use of home antigen kits.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Frank Jack
Daniel)
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