The United States will deliver half a million Moderna coronavirus vaccines to the Palestinian Authority for distribution in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said "we are pleased to provide 500,000 coronavirus vaccine doses to help save the lives of Palestinians."
Meanwhile, Israelis 30 and up will now be eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot against the coronavirus, Israel’s Health Ministry announced Tuesday.
Effective immediately, the Ministry has lowered the age limit for receipt of the third dose of the COVID vaccine to 30.
As with other age groups, Israelis in their 30s looking to receive the booster shot will be able to make an appointment for the jab via their health insurance agency (Kupat Holim).
The number of people who have been infected with the coronavirus in Israel since the disease reached the Jewish State in February 2020 has reached one million people after 9,831 new infections were diagnosed yesterday. This is the highest daily figure in the fourth wave.
The percentage of tests coming back positive rose from 6.31% Sunday to 6.63% Monday, after plateauing for five days straight last week.
Despite the rise in the number of cases, however the number of hospitalizations actually fell, declining from 1,142 hospitalized COVID patients on Monday to 1,124 Tuesday.
The number of seriously ill patients also fell Tuesday, declining from 679 Monday to 678 Tuesday. Of those, 168 patients are in critical condition, with 123 on respirators. The number of patients in critical condition rose from 162 from Monday, while the number on respirators went up from 108 on Monday.
Yesterday, about 92,000 Israelis received the third dose of the vaccine and another 10,000 received the first dose - 7,900 of them students. A total of 1,575,898 have received the third dose of the vaccine so far.