He did not expect to be vaccinated now, 23-year-old Jonathan Tannenbaum. “I do have a condition in my respiratory tract, but of course I am still very young. I thought that I would only get my turn in the next round, but I have already received my first injection. A great relief.”
Tannenbaum received his injection in a large hall in Tel Aviv, where up to 2,000 Israelis are vaccinated against the corona virus every day. In total, more than 1.5 million citizens received a vaccination in recent weeks, almost 20 percent of the population. This puts Israel head and shoulders above the rest of the world.
According to experts, it has to do with the good health care system in Israel, in which four health insurance funds play an important role. They are responsible for the majority of the vaccinations. In addition, the military is helping to repackage the large quantities of vaccines and distribute the doses across the country.
Crucial importance
But it was also crucial that Israel was able to quickly purchase a large number of vaccines from pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was willing to pay a heavy price in order to be ahead of other countries. In addition, he offered to share information about the effects of the vaccinations with the manufacturer.
“So it was interesting for Pfizer to do business with Israel,” said Nir Ran-Paz, an infectious disease specialist at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. “The company can conduct a kind of field study in Israel. In addition, Israel is only a small country, so it requires relatively few vaccines.”
Personal interest
There is also a personal interest for Prime Minister Netanyahu. He has been criticized for his corona policy in the past year, and is also in court in three different corruption cases. With a successful vaccination campaign, he hopes to attract voters to the elections scheduled for March.
As the end of stocks of the vaccines approached this week, Netanyahu announced that new shipments are on the way. This will allow all adults to be vaccinated before the end of March, the prime minister promised: “We will be able to hug each other again and pick up life again.”
This is not the case at the moment: a strict lockdown has been in effect since yesterday. But experts believe that the effects of the vaccinations will soon start to materialize. The number of new deaths from corona will be two to three times lower within weeks, expects professor Eli Waxman, a former top government adviser.
Palestinian administrators
Many Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip do not yet dare to think of such scenarios. The Palestinian administrators, who have some form of autonomy, do not have the money to stock up on many vaccines quickly. In addition, there are not enough freezers in the Palestinian territories to keep Pfizer’s vaccine cold enough.
Various aid organizations are therefore calling on Israel to ensure that the Palestinians are also vaccinated. But according to Israel, it is the agreement that the Palestinian Authority itself will take care of the vaccinations. And the Palestinian administrators also say they want to arrange the vaccination program themselves, and not ask for help from Israel.
“We are targeting the World Health Organization program and are also in talks with several vaccine manufacturers,” said a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health. According to him, the first vaccines will arrive in a month at the earliest.
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