Some 21 residents of a Bat Yam retirement home tested positive for the coronavirus after they were vaccinated but before they had developed antibodies, according to Ynet.
The other 150 residents of the home will be tested for the virus.
Health officials have stressed that the two-dose Pfizer vaccine regimen means that the vaccine is only fully effective about five weeks after the first dose. This means it could take until sometime in February for enough elderly and high-risk people to be vaccinated to help lower the spread of infection and start reopening the economy.
Moreover, the risk of catching coronavirus after the first jab has been confirmed in that some 15000 patients who received the first dose of the vaccine were screened and 428 were confirmed positive for COVID-19 and some 12 people were hospitalized, according to reports. It is possible that some of them were exposed to the virus even before being vaccinated.
On Friday morning, Israel’s one millionth citizen was vaccinated against the novel coronavirus in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein.