With 2.5 million Israelis already received the third Covid-19 vaccine called "booster shot", the national coronavirus czar Salman Zarka says the country should now be ready for the fourth jab amid the emergence of new variants.
"This virus is here to stay, and we must be ready for the fourth injection. This is how our lives will be from now on,", Chief COVID-19 Officer Prof. Salman Zarka, who oversees Israel's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, told Public Radio.
He didn't specify any timeline for the fourth jab but said the next booster shot could be modified to better protect against the recent know variants such as the Delta strain.
Although the country rolled out jabs quickly and take-up was relatively high, there are still a million people out of its roughly nine million overall population who are eligible for the vaccine and haven't taken it up.
Israel is the first country to offer a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine to its citizens on a wide scale, and near 70% of the Israeli population has already been fully vaccinated.
It has seen a surge of infections driven by the more contagious Delta variant since late June.
Health authorities said the more infectious Delta variant seems to have evaded part of Pfizer vaccine's protection, although it is still effective against severe illness.
Yesterday's report showed about 8,000 new cases and 25 deaths, bringing the nation's total death toll to 7,154.
