Health Ministry DG: Fourth COVID Vaccine Shot Just a ‘Matter of Time’

Health Ministry Director-General Profesor Nachman Ash said on Sunday that Israelis will have to get a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine sometime in the future as antibody levels lapse.

“It’s probably a matter of time, and the question is how long. If [protection] lasts for a year, we’d be delighted… In any case, it probably will not last many years, even the booster shot, and we will have to keep getting vaccinated from time to time. I hope it will be a year or more,” Ash told a press briefing.

The ministry reported Motzoei Shabbos that Israel’s coronavirus R-value — which indicates how many people on average a single virus carrier infects — has topped 1 for the first time in months.

The virus’s reproduction number, or R-rate, has reached 1.02, indicating that the pandemic may be making a comeback in Israel after weeks of steady decline.

Prof. Ash further said that the country may have to reintroduce some of the health measures that were recently lifted against the backdrop of the alarming resurgence of coronavirus cases. However, he noted that there was no reason to panic.

Israel became the first country in the world to offer its citizens a third COVID-19 dose, or booster shot, back in August after it experienced a record coronavirus outbreak despite boasting one the world’s highest vaccination rates at the time.