TEL AVIV – Israel has inoculated almost half of its highest-risk citizens and more than 10% of the population in two weeks, as authorities accelerate vaccination against Covid-19 after early hiccups led to gunfire.
The small country – with about nine million people, much like New York City – now aims to immunize most of its people by early spring. Israel’s vaccination campaign is relatively simple compared to the mass mobilizations needed by much more populous countries and a larger geographical area.
Israel began vaccinating health workers and those over the age of 60 on December 20, after receiving early deliveries of the Pfizer Inc. vaccine. As of Saturday, he had administered 12.59 doses to 100 of his men, according to the Our World In Data research group at Oxford University. This inoculation rate is almost four times faster than the second fastest nation, the small state of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf.
“The health system is proving itself,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Israel boasts a technologically advanced health care system where everyone in the country is registered by law.
The launch provides information on how authorities are trying to maximize campaign coverage for the most vulnerable, while reducing dose wastage, which must be kept extraordinarily cold to prevent them from going bad.
After Israel was forced to drop hundreds of doses as fewer people showed up than expected to be inoculated, authorities reduced the number of vials that were sent to vaccination centers and allowed anyone to be hit. to jump in line. These steps have allowed Israel to quickly reduce waste and reach more people, officials say.
Pfizer vaccine, developed with partner BioNTech SE,
should be administered in a window five days after leaving the main storage center and six hours once in the refrigerator, according to Israeli authorities, who say they comply with Pfizer rules.
To cope with this short period of validity and help the authorities reach less populated and isolated areas, Israel has begun dividing some of Pfizer’s 1,000-dose packages into smaller batches of several hundred each. The system, in which workers repack bottles in workstations in massive freezers, was approved by Pfizer before being implemented, Mr Edelstein said.
Israel has also adopted a policy that allows vaccination centers facing a surplus to be lost soon to inoculate anyone who appears. This led to scenes in the country, both young and middle-aged, queuing at vaccination centers, hoping to receive an early photo.
But in doing so, Israel also risks running out of the current supply of vaccines before the most vulnerable are completely inoculated. Israel bought 8 million doses from Pfizer, 6 million from Moderna and 10 million from AstraZeneca,
but it is not clear when the expeditions will arrive. Vaccine manufacturers say it takes two doses to be fully effective.
Authorities will also stop vaccinating new patients for a two-week period by mid-January. The current plan is for those already vaccinated to start receiving the second dose during this break.
The Israeli Minister of Health defended the current plan as balancing the needs of those most at risk with the rest of the country.
“I don’t think it would be the right decision … to give the vaccine only to those who are eligible – for example, 1,000 vaccines a day, with zero mistakes -[but] then vaccinate the country in a year, ”said Mr. Edelstein. “In the meantime, we would have people who will die just because they didn’t get the vaccine on time.”
Israel is currently on the verge of a third national blockade to contain a recurrence of the Covid-19 cases – one that health officials say does not work because there are too many exceptions.
The decision to impose the blockade at the end of December came as the new daily infection rates reported in Israel reached over 3,000. There are now an average of over 5,000 daily, with a total of 50,299 active cases.
A total of 3,391 Israelis died from the virus, with a mortality rate of 0.8%. Deaths have risen steadily since early December.
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