Over 70,000 recovering Israelis who had not received the coronavirus vaccines contracted the disease again since the beginning of the year, Ynet reports.

According to Israeli ministry data, there were only rare cases reported of infections in those who had recovered from COVID until August, but since the spread of the Omicron variant, 10% to 12% of daily cases were among that population group.

Most of those repeat infections were among unvaccinated Israelis, most of them in the 20 to 29 age group, followed by people in their 30s.

Experts say they were not surprised by the data. “Coronavirus, we know does not provide strong immunity for a long period of time,” Professor Cyrille Cohen of the Bar-Ilan University said. “There is a variant that is different from earlier variants of the virus, so the immune system does not recognize it in the same way and in some patient’s the body acts like it was exposed to a new virus,” he said.

{Matzav.com Israel}