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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that Israel had reached a deal with Pfizer to advance delivery of more COVID-19 vaccines to August 1, after struggling to secure the purchase of a new batch since the the country’s existing stock expires at the end of July.
At the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Bennett said he spoke to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Saturday and struck the deal, which he said “guarantees us a continuous supply of vaccines in Israel ”.
The Walla news site said that as part of the deal, some 200,000 vaccines will be sent to the Jewish state.
Calling on teens to get vaccinated, Bennett stressed that “there are vaccines for everyone” – both the first shot and the second, since the new shipment will arrive just as the vaccine batch existing will expire.
Bennett added that the government was working on a policy that would allow mass events to continue without causing massive infections. There have been no further details on the matter, although it has already been reported that some form of the Green Pass system could return, granting access to certain events and locations only to those vaccinated and recovered.
Israel’s vaccination campaign is currently only open to ages 12 and older. Authorities approved the vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds in early June, but authorities did not start encouraging vaccinations for the age group until late last month in response to the increase in the number of cases. .
According to the Walla news site, around 29% of 12-15 year olds have been vaccinated, as well as around 11% who contracted COVID-19 and recovered. This brings the immunity rate to around 40%, below the 50% expected by the Ministry of Health.
An Israeli woman receives a dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine during a campaign by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality to encourage the vaccination of adolescents on July 5, 2021, in Tel Aviv (JACK GUEZ / AFP)
Israel had been pushing to use or exchange more than a million doses of the vaccine that expire at the end of July.
Last week, a plane carrying some 700,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine took off for South Korea, under a deal that will see Seoul send new vaccines in exchange later this year. These doses are also expected to expire by the end of the month, and Korean authorities quickly decided to send them to distribution centers.
Bennett on Sunday thanked Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz for helping secure the “world first” deal, and said Israel would receive those 700,000 doses in the coming months.
The resurgence of the virus due to the Delta variant has become a major problem for Bennett’s new government, occurring less than two months after the decline in cases following the mass vaccination, allowing Israel to lift most restrictions and to reopen public life.
The variant is believed to be more capable of infecting even vaccinated individuals, although in most cases it only causes mild illness for those vaccinated.
The health ministry said on Sunday that 261 new cases had been detected the day before, with 0.6% of tests coming back positive.
There were 4,130 active cases and 44 severe cases. The death toll was 6,436 after five deaths were confirmed in the past few days, after nearly two weeks without deaths.
The ministry said 5,728,526 Israelis received at least one dose of the vaccine, of which 5,190,709 were fully immunized.
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