Israel announced on Monday it had administered its one-millionth coronavirus booster shot two weeks after the country began offering a third vaccine dose to its citizens.
"We have now reached a million citizens who took responsibility for themselves and their environment and were vaccinated with the third vaccine," Prime Minister Naftali Bennet said in a joint statement by the Prime Minister's Office and Health Ministry. "This is a wonderful statistic and a great achievement, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us."
2 View gallery
Magen David Adom medic administers coronavirus booster shot to senior citizens at a pop-up vaccination station at Tel Aviv's Rabin Square
(Photo: Moti Kimchi)
The booster shot campaign initially only included adults over the age of 60 and was later expanded to include those aged 50 and over.
By reaching this milestone, Israel has vaccinated more than half of 1.9 million Israelis aged 50 and up who have been given the first two vaccine doses at least five months ago.
"A very nice achievement but not enough," Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said. "Only if we continue to further immunize the vaccinated with the third dose and reach citizens who have not been vaccinated at all will we get through the crisis without going into lockdown."
Meanwhile, Israel on Monday saw its tally of severe cases slightly drop after days of continued increase, while the national infection rate continued to rise.
Israel has in recent weeks accelerated its coronavirus vaccine booster shot campaign and the latest data might be the first sign of its effects in helping to curb the resurgence of the virus.
On Sunday, the ministry reported that coronavirus infection rates among Israelis over the age of 60 seemed to have declined in recent days, with the percentage of senior citizens accounting for Israel's daily caseload dropping from 13.3% to less than 10% within a week.
Data shows that 288 of 2,970 coronavirus cases confirmed since midnight were detected among senior citizens, accounting for 9.7% of the daily caseload. That figure stood at 10.7% the day before, 12.2% last Wednesday and 13.3% exactly one ago on Sunday.