Staff volunteers queue to receive a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, on December 27, 2021, as the Israeli hospital conducted a trial of the vaccine’s fourth jab on staff volunteers.
JACK GUEZ / AFP

Israel began Monday administering fourth Covid vaccine shots to people over 60 and health workers amid a surge driven by the Omicron variant.

Health workers at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv lined up for the shot and over-60s received it at the nearby branch of Clalit, Israel’s largest health fund.

The shot was given to those who received their third inoculation at least four months ago.

The health ministry on Sunday approved the fourth shot for the over-60s and medical staff, two days after those with weakened immunity started to take the shot, making Israel one of the first countries to do so.

The health ministry on Monday reported 6,562 new Covid infections over the previous day, nearly double the daily average of last week.

In an address late Sunday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned that cases could soon surge to around “50,000 cases per day”.

More than four million people out of Israel’s population of 9.2 million have received three shots of coronavirus vaccine.

A total of almost 1.4 million cases of Covid infection, including 8,244 deaths, have been officially recorded in Israel.