Director General of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Hezi Levi, ordered Israel’s four health funds on Wednesday to vaccinate everyone 35 and older from Thursday. The country has already vaccinated someone over 40 years old.
Two of the health funds, Clalit and Meuhedet, had begun vaccinating younger people last week without waiting for government approval. Levi ordered both funds to stop those vaccinations immediately.
Israelis are lining up to receive the coronavirus vaccine in Tel Aviv
(Photo: Moti Kimchi)
The country also began vaccinating 11th and 12th graders aged 17 and 18 on Sunday to enable them to pass their entrance exams without fear of infection.
Pregnant women have also been urged to get vaccinated because of concerns that the new strains of the virus pose a greater threat to them.
Israel began the world’s fastest per capita distribution of vaccines against the novel coronavirus in the world on December 19, using the shot developed by the US company Pfizer Inc. and the German BioNTech.
On Tuesday, the government said the vaccinations proved to be very effective, with Israel not seeing a single serious case of COVID-19 among the more than 6% of the population who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Israel has begun to vaccinate 11th and 12th graders so they can take their entrance exam without fear of infection
(Photos: Moti Kimchi, AFP)
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told lawmakers Tuesday that he knew of “no serious morbidity” among Israelis eligible for the “green passport” issued by the state a week after the second dose was administered, when Pfizer says the vaccine is 95% effective.
Edelstein said 0.014% of the roughly half a million people who received both vaccine doses had contracted milder forms of COVID-19.
The minister also said 80% of the Israelis at risk have been vaccinated, and 252,000 are waiting to be vaccinated.
A man is vaccinated against the coronavirus at a Maccabi HMO vaccination site in the central city of Givatayim
(Photo: Reuters)
Yet the country is still struggling to stem the spread of the virus among the general population. Edelstein also warned Tuesday that new infections and hospitalizations for serious or critical COVID complications were reaching record numbers.
The Ministry of Health said Wednesday night that 4,778 people had tested positive for coronavirus in Israel since midnight, bringing the country’s number of active cases to 74,785.
A total of 52,500 tests have been conducted since midnight, yielding an infection rate of 9.1% – a slight drop since Tuesday.
Israel has now seen 4,574 people succumb to COVID-19. Just over 25% of that total – 1,211 people – has died since the beginning of January.
The country also has 1,160 virus patients who have been hospitalized in serious condition.
The resident of a care home in Herzliya is given the coronavirus vaccine
(Photo: Getty Images)
The Ministry of Health blames highly transmissible variants from abroad for setbacks in Israel’s attempt to halt the spread of the virus.
A week after it started vaccinations, it imposed its third national lockdown, which officials say may need to be extended beyond the Jan. 31 expiration date.
But last Thursday, it reported a reproduction number – known as “R” – of less than 1, indicating that the epidemic is no longer growing.
Reuters contributed to this report