Yaffa Ben David
Yaffa Ben DavidYonatan Sindel/Flash90

Yaffa Ben David, Secretary General of the Israel Teachers Union (ITU), on Wednesday turned to Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) demanding he allow teachers to receive a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine, Israel Hayom reported.

The third dose is intended to protect some 200,000 teachers when their 2.2 million students begin the school year on September 1.

In a letter sent to Horowitz, Ben David wrote: "In recent days, I have received dozens of requests from teachers and preschool teachers requesting that we work with the Health Ministry in order to allow every education employee interested in it to receive the third dose of the vaccine, and thus to allow them to feel safer and to be more protected against the coronavirus."

According to Ben David, most of the requests came from teaching staff in special education frameworks.

"We are confident and sure that you have the authority to instruct the HMOs to allow educational staff to receive the third dose of the vaccine prior to the start of the school year on September 1, 2021," her letter concluded.

On Tuesday, the Education Ministry predicted that by September 1, there will be 5,000 students confirmed to be infected with coronavirus.