The unvaccinated hamper immunity in Israel despite abundance of vaccines
The abundance of vaccines, their rapid administration and an effusive return to normality generated in Israel a post-pandemic illusion that evaporated in a few months, largely due to the stagnation in the numbers of inoculated, since more than a million adults refuse to be vaccinated.
Israel was one of the pioneer countries to start inoculation, last December and with the Pfizer vaccine, with a campaign that in a short time positioned the country as a world leader. With this, the long-awaited normality returned in the form of concerts, massive events and faces without masks.
However, there was an increase in cases from two months ago that has plunged the country into a fourth wave of COVID-19, with daily infection figures of around 8,000 and approaching the maximums recorded in January, and with a positive rate of around 6%, after having reduced it to practically zero in June.
According to experts, this fourth wave has been consolidated by the conjunction of a series of factors: lthe spread of the aggressive Delta variant, an erroneous feeling by the population that the pandemic was over, the decline in immunity among those vaccinated over time, and the large number of people who do not want to receive the vaccine.
While 1.1 million people refuse to receive the vaccine, 12% of the population, the country has focused its efforts on accelerating an also pioneering third dose campaign, which has already received more than 1.4 million people older than 40 years since they began to apply it in July.
Figures from the Ministry of Health show that the number of people who reject the injection varies with age: 20% of adults between 20 and 50 years do not want to receive it; between 50 and 70 years are around 15%; and among those over that age the percentage is less than 10%.
Despite the fact that the number of vaccinated is vastly higher than that of not vaccinated, during this fourth wave lThe distribution of infections has been similar between both groups And the same has happened with the number of serious cases, which are already 670 patients, 104 connected to ventilators.
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