Israelis aged 50 and over began receiving vaccine booster shots against the coronavirus Friday as part of a government bid to stem spiking infections driven by the Delta variant.
The government announced on Thursday that it was offering third shots to people aged over 50, two weeks after launching a campaign to give the elderly booster jabs.
"This is an important step in the fight against the Delta pandemic," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.
Israel was one of the first countries to launch a vaccination drive in mid-December via an agreement with Pfizer to obtain millions of paid doses in exchange for sharing data on their effectiveness.
The campaign helped to drastically bring down infections, but that trend has since reversed, driven by the spread of the Delta variant in unvaccinated people as well as those whose immunity has waned six months after they got their initial shots.
"Starting this morning, people between the ages of 50 and 60 have been vaccinated at Clalit clinics across the country," said Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer at Clalit Health Services and the chairman of Israel's national expert panel on Covid-19.
After years of being careful... 
