TEL AVIV – Israel has inoculated nearly half of its vulnerable citizens and more than 10% of its population in two weeks as authorities stepped up the Covid-19 vaccination campaign after an outbreak of hiccups.
With a population of about nine million as much as New York City, this small country now aims to vaccinate most of its people in early spring. Israel’s vaccination campaign is relatively simple compared to the mass marriages required by countries with many more people and geographically successful countries.
On December 20, Israel began vaccinating its health care workers and people over the age of 60. Pfizer Inc. After the early shipment of the vaccine. As of Saturday, he had given 12.59 doses per 100 people, according to the Xford University-based research group Our World in Data. That rate of inoculation is almost four times faster than the second fastest nation, the small Arab Gulf state of Bahrain.
“The health system is proving itself,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Israel is the pride of the technologically advanced health care system on which every law in the country is registered.
The rollout, while minimizing dose wastage, provides insight into how the campaign seeks to maximize campaign coverage for the most vulnerable, which must be kept exceptionally cool to keep them from getting worse.
Israel was forced to dump hundreds of doses as fewer people inoculated than expected, officials cut down on the number of vials sent to vaccination centers and allowed anyone willing to jump into the queue to receive the vaccine. Officials say the move allowed Israel to quickly reduce waste and reach more people.
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The main storage center must be operated in a five-day window after leaving, and once outside the fridge for six hours, according to Israeli officials, they say they are following Pfizer’s rules.
To cope with this short shelf life and to help the authorities reach less populated and scattered areas, Israel began distributing some of Pfizer’s 1000-dose packages into a few small gold goods. Mr Edelstein said the system, in which workers refill vials in workstations in a large number of freezers, was approved by Pfizer before it could be implemented.
Israel has also implemented a policy that allows vaccine centers to inoculate anyone who can cope with the wasted surplus as soon as possible. Hoping to get shots as soon as possible, this has created scenes across the country of both young and middle-aged citizens at vaccination centers.
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But by doing so, Israel also risks running out of its current vaccine supply before full inoculation of its extreme sensitivities. Israel has purchased 8 million doses from Pfizer, 6 million doses from Moderna and 10 million doses from AstraZeneca.,
But it is not clear when the shipment will arrive. Vaccine manufacturers say it takes two doses to be fully effective.
Authorities will also stop vaccinating new patients for a two-week period by mid-January. The current plan is that those who have already been vaccinated will start receiving their second dose during this break.
Israel’s health minister defended the current plan to balance the highest risk needs in the rest of the country.
“I don’t think it would be the right decision … just to vaccinate that character – for example, 1,000 vaccines a day with zero errors -[but] Then vaccinate in the country in a year. ”Said Mr. Edelstein. “In the meantime, we will have people who will die because they did not get the vaccine in time.”
Israel is currently in the midst of its third national lockdown to hold a resurgence in Kovid-19 cases – health officials say it is not working because there are too many exceptions.
The decision to impose a lockdown came at the end of December as the new daily infection rate in Israel reached more than 20,000,000. They are now working an average of over 5,000,000 daily cases with an average of 50.5 active cases.
In total, 3,391 Israelis have died from the virus, with a mortality rate of 0.8%. The death toll has risen steadily since early December.
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