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Since vaccination began in mid-December, the centralized Israeli health system has administered 378,000 vaccines. Is this the fastest rate in the world among the 43 countries that started immunization? Brazil, which has aligned itself with Israel on foreign policy, does not have a concrete forecast to begin its campaign.
A country of nearly 9 million people, Israel has launched two significant and symbolic measures against COVID-19 in recent days: its mass vaccination program and also what it hopes to be the latest Israeli pandemic lockdown.
Since vaccination began in mid-December, Israel’s centralized health system has administered 378,000 vaccines. Is this the fastest rate in the world among the 43 countries that started immunization? in Brazil, the federal government, which has aligned itself with Israel on foreign policy, does not have a specific date to start vaccination. In recent interviews, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello has said that the likely start of the national campaign will be in mid-February.
According to a survey by the University of Oxford, in the UK, Israel has the highest proportional vaccination rate: 4.37% of the population has been immunized. They are followed in the ranking by Bahrain (3.15%), the United Kingdom (1.18%) and the United States (0.59%). Almost 5 million people in 43 countries have already been vaccinated against covid-19; see the ranking in this link. gram
The Israeli government is studying the possibility of opening vaccination posts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to try to speed up immunization. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also wants the daily application fee to double to 150,000 doses of Pfizer / BioNTech by 2020.
This could allow half the population to be vaccinated by the end of January. According to a survey by Duke University, in the US, Israel has already bought enough doses to immunize its entire population and Brazil, to vaccinate 63% of its population.
So far, Israel has recorded nearly 400,000 COVID-19 cases and 3,210 deaths and is experiencing an increase in the number of infections. The advance of the pandemic led the government to begin this Sunday (12/27) what it expects to be its last closure.
The strict confinement, the third in the country, will last at least three weeks and aims to contain infections that currently double in scale every two weeks, the Israeli Health Ministry said.
The vaccines mean that “there is a very high probability that this is our final closure,” Sharon Alroy-Preis, acting head of the ministry’s division of public health services, told Army Radio.
So far, Israel has guaranteed 8 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 6 million of Moderna (already licensed in the US), and 10 million of AstraZeneca-Oxford (not yet licensed in any country).
If the plan goes well, Netanyahu said that mass immunization and infection control could allow the country to suspend in March 2021 the emergency situation that has existed since the start of the pandemic.
If it works, it could also help Netanyahu’s re-election hopes after some missteps including the lifting of the first lockdown with a premature declaration of victory against the virus in May 2020, the inconsistent adoption of restrictions on the movement of people and slowness. state-led economic recovery.
“As soon as we finish this phase, in 30 days we can get out of the coronavirus pandemic, open up the economy and do things that no country can do,” Netanyahu said in a speech on television.
The government also intends to suspend its population monitoring program using the cell phone signal. This strategy has been widely criticized and questioned in the courts and in the Israeli Parliament.
Vaccines, fake news and elections
A survey by the Israel Institute of Democracy published on Sunday (12/27) found that 40.8% of the population gave the government mostly positive ratings for its approach to the health aspects of the crisis, while 32 , 2% gave negative ratings. . In economic terms, the government’s evaluations were 52.8% negative and 19.7% positive.
The polls also found that nearly two-thirds of Israelis intend to get vaccinated, prompting authorities to step up the fight against fake news about the alleged side effects of the vaccine.
Israel began a vaccination campaign against the coronavirus on 12/19 with Netanyahu evoking the Bible and the 1969 moon landing. He, who had to isolate himself three times during the pandemic for having contact with infected people, received the country’s first injection to encourage others to get vaccinated.
He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and told reporters that he had “a strong hand and an outstretched arm,” a joke with the description of God’s power in the Book of Exodus. And he also alluded to the phrase of Neil Armstrong when he stepped on the Moon: “It was a small injection for a man, a great step for the health of all. May this be successful.
The Conservative prime minister is running in the March 23 election, called after the collapse of his ruling coalition this month.
It will be the fourth election in less than a year, a situation of political impasse unprecedented in the country’s history.
Neither Netanyahu nor his rival Benny Gantz were able to form majority coalitions in the other three elections.
Israel’s political system is based on proportional representation, with parties getting seats more by the votes they receive than by the votes they have in specific locations (electoral districts).
This means that governments will always be coalitions, some of which are more fragmented and short-lived.
The last Netanyahu-led coalition lasted four years before the April 2019 elections.
His party, the Likud, hopes that the success of the vaccination program and the resumption of the economy will help overcome the political stalemate and ensure that Netanyahu remains in power.
His main opponent in the elections, Gantz, 60, is a retired general who served as head of the Israeli Armed Forces before joining politics as the leader of the Blue and White center party.
Another obstacle for Netanyahu is the formal prosecution against him, carried out by Israel’s Attorney General, for the crimes of corruption, fraud and breach of trust in three isolated cases.
The prime minister vehemently denies all the allegations and says he is the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt”.
Netanyahu, 71, is the longest-serving Israeli prime minister, having ruled from 1996 to 1999 and now since 2009.
With information from the Reuters news agency
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