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In recent weeks, in almost every part of the country, white plastic medical tents have appeared. Outside them, the queues of people called there ring with a text message, sent from one of the four sickness funds to which all Israelis belong. The queues are very long, depending on the distance of two meters, but they go fast, because the staff has caught an impressive pace.
The activity takes place during most of the hours of the day. It goes so fast that the vaccine will run out in ten days. Thereafter, only the second dose will be administered to those already vaccinated. Only in early February is it expected that enough doses will arrive to resume the maximum rhythm.
Israel, it is said sometimes it works better in crisis than in everyday life. Both the Armed Forces, the Civil Defense – a very large authority – and the four health insurance funds have personnel, materials and infrastructure that are easily accessible for incidents like this one. The functions are repeated during recurring exercises, where earthquakes, gas attacks and terrorist attacks are simulated, true to nature with blood color, screams and explosions. This capacity exists on paper in most countries, but is often too long in mothballs to give full effect when produced.
Another favorable factor is the Israeli health system. The four sickness funds, initially linked to political movements, are non-profit. But they compete with each other for patients. A dissatisfied patient can change health insurance without much trouble and without losing his accumulated insurance points. When it became clear in the fall that vaccination would be the next phase of the health crisis, everyone made sure not to miss the boat.
Photo: Jack Guez / AFP
Of the approximately 800,000 who were vaccinated at the time of this writing, 78 percent are people over the age of 60. The others are medical personnel, teachers and those who, in the name of the profession, come into contact with many people, such as cashiers and bus drivers.
Tens of thousands of people outside the priority groups have also received the injection. They are waiting at a vaccination station at closing time. As the doses cannot be saved, the leftovers are distributed among those who are prepared. Those who want to be vaccinated at all costs already go to the Arab communities, where the willingness to vaccinate is lower and there are more doses left over.
The whole operation is at the same time a political drama. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wishes to portray vaccination as the fruit of his personal intervention and his phone calls to executives of pharmaceutical companies.
Each step of the vaccine is used by him for speeches and press conferences: when the first plane with the vaccine landed, he was on the spot, when the first injection was ready to be distributed, he made sure that it was given, alive. Fighting the plague will be Netanyahu’s weapon during the campaign leading up to the March elections, the election in which he hopes to win a majority for a change in the law that will free him from three counts of corruption.
The reported side effects have been extremely mild. But no Israel has yet received the second dose. Israel has negotiated deliveries of alternative vaccines from Moderna and Astra-Zeneca companies, and the country’s most famous hospital, Hadassa in Jerusalem, has ordered 1.5 million doses of the Russian “Sputnik” vaccine. However, none of these are expected to arrive until February. An Israeli vaccine is being tested and is expected to be approved in April.
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