Israel today began administering the coronavirus vaccine to children age 5 to 11.
The country recently emerged from a fourth Covid wave, and daily infections have been relatively low for the last few weeks. But Health Ministry statistics show that a large share of the new infections have been in children and teenagers.
Children age 5 to 11 make up nearly half of active cases. Officials hope the new inoculation campaign will help bring down the numbers and perhaps stave off a new wave.
Israeli media reported low demand for the shots on the first day they were available to this age group. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was expected to accompany his son later Tuesday to get his jab in a bid to encourage parents to have their children vaccinated.
Israel, which has a population of more than 9 million, has had more than 1.3 million infections since the start of the pandemic and more than 8,100 deaths.
Yesterday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Government awaited expert advice on giving the shot to children under 12 but that he did not expect it to happen before Christmas.
Health authorities and the Government have repeatedly insisted that most Covid cases in schoolchildren come from the community and not classrooms themselves. However, rising cases in schools have again raised questions over why contact tracing was withdrawn and why air filters were not installed before cases began to rise again.
Mr Martin said he personally supported the roll-out of the juvenile vaccine, which has been approved by US authorities and which is awaiting approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), but he did not think Irish under-12s would get it before Christmas.
"You’re not looking in terms of an immediate administration of that because of the fact that it would be a different operation – you are looking at much lower volume of vaccine for children compared to adults but it’s something on the horizon and on the agenda,” he said.
"But again it’s all in the context of the advice we will receive. Before Christmas? I'm not so sure it could happen before Christmas given what would have to be done organisationally and logistically to put it together."