COVID vaccine
COVID vaccineYonatan Sindel/Flash90

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke today (Thursday) with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and asked him to speed up the regulatory approval process for coronavirus vaccines for children under the age of 12.

The Pfizer CEO told the prime minister that he sees great importance in the possibility of vaccinating children against the coronavirus, and that he is doing and will do his best to speed up the process.

Two two also discussed the efforts to provide a third vaccine dose to Israeli citizens, Israel is the first country in the world to begin to provide a third vaccine dose to its over-60 population.

Bennett clarified during the conversation that the decision depends on the recommendation of health experts, but the HMOs must prepare for the expansion of the administration third vaccine dose to those under 60, possibly as early as next week.

5,946 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed yesterday (Wednesday). Out of a total of 42,203 currently active COVID-19 cases, 748 patients are currently hospitalized. At the same time, the number of serious cases rose from 400 on Wednesday to 421 by Thursday morning.

Eighty-seven coronavirus patients are in critical condition, while 65 are intubated.

Around the country, 139,043 were performed Wednesday, while the percentage of positive test results remained high at 4.62%.