Israel has opened a Covid vaccination center in a bar and offers a free drink to anyone who gets a shot to encourage young people to get vaccinated.
The Jenia gastropub in Tel Aviv, which was closed for a long time during the pandemic, opened its doors on Thursday to serve another type of shooting.
More than 43% of Israel’s 9 million population has already received at least one dose of Pfizer vaccine, health ministers say, especially among the elderly.
But there are fears that young people, who are much less at risk from Covid, will be less willing to get hit – leading to new ideas to tempt them.
A bar in Tel Aviv now offers bettors a very different type of shooting after it has been turned into a temporary vaccination center
Young people who get vaccinated at the bar receive free drink chips that can be redeemed at the bar
“I thought it was a great opportunity to come and get the vaccine, because I didn’t have the time or the ability to go elsewhere,” said May Perez, among dozens of people who showed up for the first photos.
Israel has been hailed for carrying out a vaccination program that beats the world, which has seen it vaccinate a larger share of its population than any other country.
But the rate of people getting the vaccine has dropped dramatically in recent weeks, as the release extends beyond the elderly and vulnerable to lower-risk groups.
Meanwhile, doctors reported an increase in the number of young people arriving at the hospital – the vast majority of whom had not been vaccinated.
While this is encouraging because it means the vaccine works, health officials say the challenge now is to get more people to get it.
Professor Eyal Leshem, an infectious disease expert at Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba, told Sky News: “You have to really convince them.
“You need to prepare for communication, travel to work on social media, travel and work with community leaders, opinion leaders, even celebrities, just making sure people understand that it’s safe and that it’s it is very important that everyone gets vaccinated so that we can return to normal life. ‘
Meanwhile, promising studies at Professor Leshem’s hospital have suggested that an initial dose of Pfizer vaccine is 85% effective against coronavirus infection two to four weeks after inoculation.
Israel has the fastest inoculation program in the world, but has begun to slow as jab is offered to younger people who are less at risk for Covid
Israeli doctors say they are seeing an increasing number of young people arriving in hospital as the vaccine protects the elderly from serious illnesses.
Studies in Israel suggest that Pfizer, which the country uses for its launch (pictured), could be up to 94% effective in preventing the disease.
The survey was conducted on hospital health workers.
The Lancet report focused on more than 9,000 medical staff at Sheba Hospital near Tel Aviv. About 7,000 of them received the first dose, and the rest were not inoculated.
Of the group, 170 were diagnosed with Covid-19 after tests performed only on those who had symptoms or were in contact with coronavirus carriers.
Fifty-two percent of them turned out not to have been vaccinated.
Comparing the two groups, the Sheba study calculated that the vaccine was 47 percent effective between one and 14 days after inoculation, rising to 85 percent after 15 to 28 days.
“What we see is a really high effectiveness already after two weeks, between two weeks and four weeks after the vaccine, an already high effectiveness of reducing the symptomatic infection by 85%,” said Gili Regev-Yochay, co-author of the study. small group of journalists.
He said that although the vaccine is “amazingly effective”, scientists are still studying whether fully vaccinated people can transmit the virus to others.
“This is the big, big, question. We’re working on it. This does not appear in this paper and I hope that we will have good news soon “, said Regev-Yochay.
Israel has delivered a vaccine with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine to 4.23 million residents, or 47% of the nine million inhabitants, of whom 2.85 million received the full recommended rate of two blows, according to the latest figures from the ministry health.