10,600 booster "breakthrough" infections in Israel, JPost reports

While several European nations head into a lockdown as COVID surges again, Israel is still enjoying relative lows in comparison after administering more than 4 million booster shots to its 9.3 million population.

However, more than 10,000 people who took the booster have been infected with COVID since then. The Jerusalem Post noted that “10,600 out of 4 million people who received the third jab is only 0.27%.”

The booster campaign in Israel began in late July following an uptick in new virus cases. By early September Israel was recording a high number of daily infections. The wide implementation of the booster shot was credited with tamping down the infection levels, resulting in the current lull.

The Jerusalem Post underscored the strong effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine citing Health Ministry statistics showing that 12% of those hospitalized people are fully vaccinated (23 people on Friday) compared to 80% of those hospitalized, 160, who are unvaccinated. In addition, those 23 who are fully vaccinated (with a booster) “out of 4 million vaccinated people means only 0.00057% were hospitalized.”

“This should be compared to 160 people out of 700,000 unvaccinated individuals, which is 0.023%,” the Post said.

“No one said that the vaccine is 100% able to stop infections,” said Prof. Cyrille Cohen, head of the immunology lab at Bar-Ilan University.

“There is no reason for alarm,” Cohen said.

The question remains, however, with nearly 11,000 breakthrough cases despite the booster, and with uncertainty as to how long the third shot maintains efficacy, will Israel head into a fifth wave in the coming months?