More than ten percent of Israel’s population has received the first dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, a rate that has far exceeded the rest of the world and, at a critical point, has kept floating the hit image of country leader Benjamin Netanyahu nationwide.
Israel’s campaign, which began on December 20, has distributed the vaccine to its population at a rate three times that of the second fastest nation, the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. according to figures collected from local government sources in Our World in Data.
In contrast, less than one percent of the U.S. population and only small fractions of the population in many European countries received the dose of a vaccine by the end of 2020, according to Our World in Data, despite that the total distribution of doses in China, the United States, and the United Kingdom has been greater in each of these countries.
“It’s a pretty extraordinary story,” said Ran Balicer, chairman of the national advisory team that is advising the Israeli government on its response to COVID-19.
Israel has a highly digitalized and community-based health system – by law, all citizens must register with one of the country’s four health maintenance organizations (HMOs). – as well as a centralized government, which have demonstrated expertise in orchestrating a national inoculation campaign, according to Israeli health experts.
With a population of 9 million people, Israel’s relatively small size has also played an important role, said Balicer, who is also the director of innovation at Clalit, the largest of the country’s four HMOs.
An aggressive acquisition effort helped set the stage.
In an interview on Friday, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein commented that Israel had been “early riser” in negotiations with pharmaceuticals and that companies were interested in supplying Israel for its reputation for efficiency and reliable collection. of data that their HMOs have.
“We are at the forefront in the world thanks to our early preparation,” he noted.
In October, internal political strife, confusing instructions and a lack of confidence in the government gave the impression of having fractured Israel as the country struggled to cope with an increase in cases and deaths from coronavirus. which, in relation to the size of the population, was one of the worst in the world.
Although the restrictions imposed by Israel in the fall reduced the number of new cases of COVID-19 in recent weeks, they have increased to more than 5,000 a day, so the country returned to the third closure emergency, although this was partial. More than 420,000 Israelis have been infected and 3325 have died.
So far, the Israeli authorities have not made public the amount of doses of the vaccine the country has received or how much it paid for them, on the grounds that the agreements are confidential. However, according to Edelstein, if it turned out that Israel paid more compared to other countries, the cost would still be worth it even if it were to reopen the Israeli economy a week earlier than it could have done otherwise.
Jonathan Halevy, president of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, mentioned that being one of the first had been a “right strategy.”
According to Edelstein, having prioritized health professionals and citizens over the age of 60, Israel managed to get a majority of its high-risk population to receive the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in late January. . About 150,000 Israelis are being vaccinated every day.
Netanyahu – who is being tried on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – has established the vaccination campaign as a kind of personal mission, by being awarded credit for signing the agreements and having secured millions of doses of Pfizer, Modern and other companies.
With Israel on the way to another election in March, the fourth in two years for the country, Netanyahu has turned the possibility of a speedy recovery from the health and economic crisis that produced the pandemic into a cornerstone of his struggle for political survival. Netanyahu has promised that Israel will become the first country in the world to be completely vaccinated.
Aside from political motives, the prime minister has been praised for his efforts, even by some of his longtime critics, after he was widely blamed for mishandling the crisis last year. .
“We can’t blame Netanyahu for all of Israel’s suffering – albeit correctly, most of the time – and then ignore his contribution when something works,” Gideon Levy, a Haaretz columnist, wrote this week. left trend newspaper.
On December 19, Netanyahu became the first Israeli to be inoculated against COVID-19, as he said he wanted to lead by example. On Tuesday, he visited a Jerusalem facility to congratulate the Israeli who had received the 500,000th vaccine.
On Thursday, Netanyahu visited a vaccination center in the city of Tira, located in the central region of Israel, to encourage greater participation by the country’s Arab minority. Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the population, have hesitated more than others to be vaccinated.
“We brought millions of vaccines, more than any other country in the world in relation to its population,” Netanyahu noted, adding, “We brought them all: Jews and Arabs, religious and secular.”
“Come be vaccinated,” he urged in Arabic.
So far, the government’s vaccination campaign has not been extended to Palestinians in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who have not yet had access to any vaccines, and the Palestinian Authority does not appear to have. publicly requested. Legal experts and human rights activists mentioned that Israel was obliged to provide vaccines to Palestinians.
This week, the United Nations agency in charge of humanitarian affairs for the occupied territories noted that the Palestinian Authority had requested financial support from COVAX’s global vaccination system and was working with international organizations on logistics.
Edelstein mentioned that the government’s first obligation was with its own citizens, but Israel was interested in helping to contain infections among Palestinians. “If, God willing, there is a situation where we can say that we are in a position to help others, there is not the slightest doubt that it will be done,” he noted.