Israel vaccinates more than 10% of its population in two weeks

Israel began vaccinating its healthcare workers and those over 60 on December 20 after receiving the first shipments of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. By Saturday, it had administered 12.59 doses for every 100 of its inhabitants, according to the research group Our World In Data at the University of Oxford. That inoculation rate is nearly four times faster than the second-fastest nation, the tiny Arab Gulf state of Bahrain.

“The healthcare system is testing itself,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in an interview Thursday with The Wall Street Journal. Israel boasts of having a technologically advanced health care system in which all of the country’s inhabitants are registered by law.

The release provides insight into how authorities are trying to maximize campaign coverage for the most vulnerable while minimizing wasted doses, which must be kept extra cold to prevent spoilage.

After Israel was forced to dump hundreds of doses because fewer people than expected showed up to be inoculated, authorities reduced the number of vials being sent to vaccination centers and allowed anyone who was willing to receive the vaccine. vaccine will jump the queue. Those steps allowed Israel to quickly reduce waste and reach more people, officials say.

Pfizer vaccine, manufactured with partner BioNTech SE,

It must be administered within five days after it leaves the main storage facility, and six hours after it is out of the refrigerator, according to Israeli authorities, who say they are following Pfizer rules.

To cope with that short shelf life and help authorities reach less populated and isolated areas, Israel began dividing some of Pfizer’s 1,000-dose packages into smaller shipments of a few hundred each. The system, in which workers repackage vials at workstations inside massive freezers, was approved by Pfizer before being implemented, Edelstein said.

Israel also enacted a policy allowing vaccine centers facing a surplus that will soon go to waste vaccinating anyone who shows up. This has led to scenes across the country of citizens, both young and middle-aged, queuing at vaccination centers, hoping to get an early injection.

But by doing this, Israel also runs the risk of running out of its current supply of vaccines before its most vulnerable are fully inoculated. Israel has bought 8 million doses from Pfizer, 6 million from Moderna and 10 million from AstraZeneca.,

but it is not clear when the shipments will arrive. Vaccine manufacturers say it takes two doses to be fully effective.

In mid-January, authorities will also stop vaccinating new patients for a period of two weeks. The current plan is for those already vaccinated to begin receiving their second dose during this break.

Israel’s Health Minister defended the current plan as a balance between the needs of the most vulnerable with the rest of the country.

“I don’t think it is the right decision … to give the vaccine only to those who are eligible, for example, 1,000 vaccines a day without errors,[but] then vaccinate the country in a year, ”Edelstein said. “In the meantime, we would have people who will die just because they didn’t get the vaccine in time.”

Israel is currently in the midst of its third national lockdown to contain a resurgence of Covid-19 cases, one that health officials say is not working because there are too many exceptions.

The decision to impose the blockade in late December came as the new daily infection rates reported in Israel reached more than 3,000. They now average more than 5,000 a day, with 50,299 active cases in all.

In all, 3,391 Israelis have died from the virus, with a mortality rate of 0.8%. Deaths have risen steadily since early December.