How Israel will vaccinate half the population in a month and quit the coronavirus pandemic by March

Israel, a country of nearly 9 million inhabitants, has launched two significant and symbolic measures against Covid-19 in recent days:a mass vaccination program and also what he hopes for is the latest lockdown in the Israeli pandemic. Since vaccination began in mid-December, Israel’s centralized health system has administered 378,000 vaccines, according to the agency. Reuters Quoted by BBC.

This is the fastest rate in the world among the 43 countries that have started vaccination.

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 vaccinated. 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.

Currently, the Israeli government you study the opening of vaccination posts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to try to speed up the vaccination. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also wants the daily application fee to be doubled to 150,000 doses of Pfizer / BioNTech by 2020.

This could allow half of the population to be vaccinated by the end of January. According to a survey conducted by Duke University, United States, Israel you have already purchased enough doses to immunize your entire population.

Until now, Israel has recorded nearly 400,000 cases of covid-19 and 3,210 deaths and you experience an increase in the number of infections. The progression of the pandemic has led the government to begin what it hopes will be its last shutdown on Sunday.

Strict confinement, a third of the country, will last at least three weeks and it aims to contain infections which are currently doubling in magnitude every two weeks, Israel’s health ministry said.

Vaccines mean “There is a very high probability that this will be our final closure”Sharon Alroy-Preis, acting head of the ministry’s public health services division, told Army Radio.

So far, Israel has guaranteed 8 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 6 million Moderna (already licensed in the United States) and 10 million AstraZeneca-Oxford (not yet licensed in any country).

Around March

If the plan goes well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said mass vaccination 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 contribute to re-election hopes of Netanyahu, after a few missteps including the lifting of the first lockout with a premature declaration of victory against the virus in May 2020, the inconsistent adoption of restrictions on the movement of people and the slow pace. state-led economic recovery.

An Israeli Institute of Democracy poll released on Sunday found that 40.8% of the population gave the government mostly positive ratings for their approach to the health aspects of the crisis, while 32.2% gave negative marks. Economically, the government’s ratings were 52.8% negative and 19.7% positive.

The surveys also revealed that nearly two-thirds of Israelis plan to get vaccinated, prompting officials to step up the fight against misinformation about the vaccine’s suspected side effects.

Israel launched a vaccination campaign against the coronavirus on December 19 with Netanyahu discussing the Bible and the 1969 moon landing. He, who had to self-isolate 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 along with the description of God’s power in the book of Exodus. And he also alluded to Neil Armstrong’s phrase when he walked on the Moon: “It was a small injection for a man, a big step for everyone’s health. May it succeed. Go out and get vaccinated! “