Despite the early success with the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine, Israel is fast moving towards a third national lockdown as the virus spreads.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet blame faster spread of the species first discovered in the UK last month. Israeli officials confirmed four cases of that tax on Dec. 23, days after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was an emerging problem there.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man receives a vaccination against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as Israel continues its national vaccination program, during a third national COVID lockdown, at a Maccabi Healthcare Services facility in Ashdod, Israel, on December 29, 2020.
Amir Cohen | Reuters
At a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Netanyahu told ministers, “We are in a state of emergency.” Ministers agreed to a lockdown starting Friday that will close schools and non-essential businesses and force residents to stay within a mile of their homes.
This comes amid a global uproar over a slow rollout of vaccines in the US and elsewhere, which Israel has largely avoided.
Tom, 69, and Judy Barrett, 67, of Marco Island wait in the early morning hours at the Lakes Park Regional Library to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Fort Myers, Florida, USA on December 30, 2020. Photo taken December 30 2020.
Andrew West | USAToday | Reuters
Israeli officials have boasted that the country has vaccinated more people in the first nine days of its vaccination campaign than in total Covid infections since the start of the pandemic.
The country had already vaccinated about 7% of the more than 9.2 million inhabitants last week. Israel’s Ministry of Health projects that up to 90% of the “at-risk population” will receive the second of two injections of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine within 25 days.
The effectiveness of its vaccine campaign has made it a potential model for the rest of the world, epidemiologists say.
Israel had an advantage early on, said Dr. Itamar Grotto, the deputy director general of the Israeli Ministry of Health and one of the officials who led the charge. “We have a national vaccination registry that was set up a few years ago; the whole country is in one database,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNBC.
The registry was started to ensure that children could take all of their photos. Thanks to that infrastructure, Israel was better prepared for this outbreak than many other countries fighting the virus. Israel had a terrifying dry run for Covid-19 when it was hit by a wild polio virus outbreak in 2013.
The country brought that disease under control with an intense vaccination campaign that led the way to the current vaccine database.
Israel’s medical infrastructure also offers a few other benefits, he said:
- Medical care in Israel has been largely socialized.
- Israel only has four health organizations serving citizens across the country, while many other countries have more competition in the system.
- Those healthcare facilities are all affiliated with the country’s national health service, which maintains records of every Israeli citizen.
- The whole system is digitized under one national system.
Before packages containing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Israel on Dec. 9, a panel assembled by the government began to find out who would get the shots in the first wave.
Boxes of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are being prepared for shipment to the Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo plant in Portage, Michigan, December 13, 2020.
Morry Gash | Swimming pool | Reuters
At the same time, the Ministry of Health began setting up a communication and distribution system so that when the vials with the vaccine arrived, they could go ahead, he said.
Patients in the database in the first group to receive the vaccine were given an appointment by email, text message, or via an online application form with a date and time frame to receive their injection. Regular clinics, community centers, hospitals and a few sports stadiums were turned into vaccination centers and staffed with previously trained health workers, he said.
Because the vaccine cannot be refrozen after it has been thawed, Israel is encouraging managers at immunization sites to use any dose.
Grotto said there is a standby list of people who can intervene at short notice if other people don’t show up at the end of the day. Officials in distribution centers also divide bottles into smaller packages, suitable for each center, another attempt to avoid waste.
However, Israel’s challenges are far from over. Health officials recently confirmed that nearly 500 doses were wasted in the south of the country because health workers couldn’t get enough people on standby to get to vaccination centers.
Israel expects more shipments from Pfizer. It also made deals with Moderna and AstraZeneca; however, those recordings have not yet been delivered. But they are expected soon. Israel is also working on their own vaccine, but there is no word on when it will be ready.