TEL AVIV – Israel will begin vaccinating everyone over 16 on Thursday, the government said, expanding the world’s fastest Covid-19 vaccination program as it faces a new wave of infections.
The small country in the Middle East has already delivered the first shot of a recommended two-dose regimen to more than a third of its roughly nine million residents since its program began on December 20. It started the campaign by targeting people over 60 and the most vulnerable, including primary care providers, and gradually expanded that list in the weeks that followed. According to data from the Israeli Ministry of Health, about one fifth of the entire population is fully vaccinated.
Israel, which is the world leader in vaccination against Covid-19 in terms of percentage of the total inoculated population, aims to inoculate most of its population in March. That was made possible after it paid a premium for Pfizer’s early shipments Inc.
and agreed to share data on the vaccine from effectiveness to side effects. It also placed orders with other vaccine companies, including Moderna Inc.
and AstraZeneca PLC.
Meanwhile, infections have continued to increase in recent weeks, despite a month-long lockdown, including a total ban on international flights since last week. Israel increased fines for those violating the lockdown earlier this week, but enforcement remains a challenge, especially among Israel’s hard-hit ultra-Orthodox community.
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about 80% of current cases in Israel have been caused by a rapidly spreading coronavirus variant from the UK.
“Of course we are on the road to victory over the coronavirus if there are no surprises like new mutations that we do not know that could enter Israel,” he said at a news conference on Tuesday.
The Israeli cabinet will meet again on Wednesday evening to discuss the extension of the nationwide lockdown so that its vaccination program can continue to catch up with the new outbreak.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel’s exit from the lockdown hinges on the vaccination of 90% of those over 50 in the next two weeks, as that age group represents the majority of severe cases. So far, Israel has vaccinated 77% of this group, he said.
Israel says it is on track to vaccinate everyone over the age of 16 by the end of March. To understand how the small country has so rapidly vaccinated more of its population than any other, WSJ visited clinics that deliver injections to the young and middle age. Photo: Tamir Elterman for The Wall Street Journal (originally published January 11, 2021)
The Israeli Ministry of Health on Wednesday ordered its four health organizations to vaccinate everyone over the age of 16. The campaign has so far been open to people aged 16-18 and over 35 years old.
The move also comes because healthcare providers have struggled to use all of their vaccine supplies in recent days, as initial enthusiasm for the campaign has waned, fewer people show up for injections, and the proportion of people in the target groups that has yet to be. vaccinated shrinks. Israel reaches a high percentage of the over-60s, and some groups, including ultra-Orthodox, teachers and Arab Israelis, are less open to the vaccination campaign.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, the number of people vaccinated every day has dropped by half in the last week. Israel aims to vaccinate more than 200,000 a day. The country vaccinated 100,097 people on Tuesday and 116,814 people on Monday.
Israel currently has 73,700 cases of coronavirus, including 1,108 critically ill patients. To date, 4,890 people have died and newly recorded cases hover at around 7,000 per day.
Israel handed over 2,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to Palestinians on Monday amid growing concern that the spread of the disease in the neighboring West Bank and Gaza could become a threat to the country.
—Dov Lieber contributed to this article.
Write to Felicia Schwartz at [email protected]
Copyright © 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8